


nor can pleasure smile here

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark, Drama & Romance, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of Innocence, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Possessive Behavior, Public Masturbation, Public Nudity, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Situational Humiliation, Verbal Humiliation, Voyeurism, Warcraft Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before holing up with Y'shaarj's heart in Orgrimmar, Garrosh took it to the Eastern Kingdoms and conquered Stormwind. Anduin is a prisoner. Wrathion wants him back.</p><p>Please heed the warnings in the tags. This is a sex slave AU. Contains strong rapey overtones (no graphic depictions), coerced sex acts/dubcon, and rape aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nor can pleasure smile here

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Written for the World of Warcraft kink meme. The prompt was Anduin and exhibitionism.  
> 2\. After posting this fill on the kink meme, it was brought to my attention that sizeable segments of the WoW fandom strongly disapprove of sexually explicit stories featuring even mildly underage characters, Anduin in particular. So with that in mind, and particularly given the content of this fic, I changed a couple of things to make him 18. He is still in Divine Bell recovery condition, but it's an AU.  
> 3\. Thanks to GW for the readthrough even though this sort of thing is not your cup of poison. <3

Warlord Zaela herself ends up escorting Wrathion into Orgrimmar's throne room, simply because she happens to be going in just as he's finally brought before the warchief. Wrathion's found he hates waiting on the pleasure of someone in a position of more power than himself almost as much as he hates the orcs' acrid city, but wait he did, with Left and Right standing a few feet away while he paced, two dozen sets of Kor'kron eyes on the three of them. 

Everything at the Tavern he calls home is well used, but sturdy and well made and maintained. Everything aboveground in Orgrimmar seems dirty and dilapidated, with a layer of fine grit overlaid it. Wrathion is accustomed to the air in Pandaria that always feels clean and fresh in his lungs. Orgrimmar's air is dry and dusty. Below the surface, the cavernous rooms that have been carved out underneath the city seem newer and cleaner but little better. The rooms he's been led through are huge and dark and all have a feel that's somehow ominous.

Zaela comes and goes as she pleases, evidently, judging by the way she walks with her head high past the rigid lines of Kor'kron guards. But she looks curiously at Wrathion's clothing as she passes, and she halts when she gets her first look at his face.

"You are the Black Prince Wrathion," Zaela says, looking at him with sharp eyes and almost predatory interest. "I have heard of you." Her voice is a low, orcish female growl.

He inclines his head an inch. "Your reputation precedes you as well, Warlord Zaela."

Zaela seems surprised he knows her name, but she recovers quickly, her lips twitching in the beginnings of a smile. "The eyes of Hellscream are upon you," she says, which seems to have become a strange combination greeting, blessing and threat he's heard multiple times since his arrival in Orgrimmar. "Are you here answering the summons to swear fealty?"

Actually, he hadn't known there was one.

"Indeed I am," he answers smoothly. Well, it was more or less what he'd planned to do anyway.

"Walk with me then," Zaela says, not taking her eyes off him, almost like she wants to ask him something, or like she doesn't want to let him out of her sight. Zaela dismisses the Kor'kron who were going to escort him with the wave of her hand, and she continues to stare sideways at him as they walk. Wrathion is accustomed to having all eyes on him, and he usually enjoys so easily holding the attention of mortals with his unusual dress and his natural charisma, but Warlord Zaela is a different story.

He ignores the hole Zaela's burning through the side of his face and refuses to let on that she--or what she represents, really--unnerves him. He tells himself she's irrelevant, she can't dare try anything, not with him here to see Garrosh. It's been over two weeks since the Horde sacked Stormwind in a crushing victory against the Alliance, and much as Wrathion hates having to travel to Orgrimmar like a common supplicant, with the way things have escalated he has little choice.

Zaela leads him out of the grandeur of the huge stone waiting chamber into another one of the rough-hewn hallways with a floor of packed dirt. The shifts down here are ... strange. The rooms have walls of smoothly carved and engraved stone and are lit by fiery chandeliers and brazier trenches set into the floors along the walls; the hallways connecting the rooms are narrow spaces with sloppily chopped walls of unfinished rock, lit only by occasional torches. Boxes of supplies are stacked haphazardly here and there. Perhaps the goblin engineers who carved this place out beneath the city haven't finished yet, though none seem to be working at the moment. Perhaps Garrosh doesn't care.

Wrathion has a twofold purpose in visiting. The first reason for his trip is to decide whether Garrosh Hellscream needs to be summarily deposed. If Garrosh has been corrupted by an Old God, Wrathion will seek to have him swiftly assassinated. He could glimpse Garrosh through the eyes of his champions, but Wrathion desires to see Garrosh for himself. 

Still, it's dangerous what he's doing, venturing into Garrosh's city, full of his spies and his Dragonmaw allies who make it their business to enslave dragons. Wrathion is no coward, but he's also not a fool, and he would almost certainly have chosen to survey and handle Garrosh from afar if not for his second purpose in the city: to find Anduin Wrynn. His watchers in the area, the ones who hadn't mysteriously disappeared, had informed him Anduin was brought a prisoner back to Orgrimmar like so many of his people, but no one seems to actually have seen him, at least as of five days ago, which was when Wrathion received the last message. He hasn't been able to contact any of his watchers in Orgrimmar since, and he's been forced to recognize the disturbing likelihood that they've all been killed. Wrathion has, if he admits it to himself, been rather plagued by worry about Anduin, and it's made him aggravated with everyone. He passes through the final doorway into the inner sanctum and stops short, so abruptly Right bumps into his back. Wrathion barely notices, because the heart of an Old God is hanging suspended by chains from the ceiling.

He stares.

With an effort he makes his legs move. He walks towards the heart as if in a dream, past a walkway leading down, to a balcony overlooking the throne room.

The Old God's heart looks slick to the touch, a rough stringy-looking mass of streaked purple and gray muscle. It looks dead and cold as the chains that hold it, yet it seems... alive at the same time, like it might suddenly start beating again at any moment. None of Wrathion's agents have laid eyes on it. Seeing the heart in the wet flesh, he realizes he'd been expecting, maybe half-hoping for something smaller and less foreboding. He certainly wasn't anticipating seeing it on display, a behemoth hanging from the ceiling like some dark ritualistic decoration. All his questions about the rule of Garrosh Hellscream are instantly answered by the sight.

He glances down to the room below, and he gets a second shock. Anduin Wrynn is sitting idly on a thin mat off to one side at the base of the throne. It's inconceivable, almost, that anything could keep his eyes from returning at once to the enormous heart hanging above the room like a twisted chandelier out of some nightmare.

But Anduin.

Anduin is nearly naked. All that conceals his sex is a flap of blue cloth that hangs from a narrow black belt. It's a small scrap, and Anduin's slender hips and thighs are visible on either side. He wears the soft black leather boots he wore so often at the Tavern, embroidered with silver accents at the tops, but also a thin black collar around his neck, fresh piercings.... _piercings?_ , and ... chains. An excess of metal, chains slim as jewelry and thick as the grip of a sword. A heavy steel manacle is locked around each of his wrists, with long, thick chains coming off them and bolted to an iron ring in the floor. His earlobes have been pierced with silver studs, and his nipples have silver barbells through them. A delicate silver chain connects the two nipple piercings. Another length of medium-thick chain hangs from the collar around his neck. _A leash._

Anduin is a little thinner than Wrathion remembers. Perhaps it's only seeing him without clothing... but no, he's thinner. Not taller either, it's no sudden growth spurt. Just less to him, as though he hasn't been eating much. And he probably hasn't. Anduin looks terribly small alongside the massive throne and the two orcs seated on and near it.

Anduin also wears a crown. Wrathion recognizes it at once as Anduin's own. Anduin had kept his crown in the bottom of a chest in his bedroom at the Tavern, and Wrathion had rummaged through all Anduin's belongings late one night when they were bored. Wrathion can picture the way Anduin grinned boyishly as he looked on from his bed, amused by Wrathion's apparent interest in his things. The friendship was still relatively new then, and the grin said clearer than any words that Anduin was in company he found delightful. Wrathion had tried to talk Anduin into putting the crown on for him, but Anduin had laughingly demurred.

On him here, now, the crown makes a jest of his birth and rank.

Zaela's followed him to the balcony. "This is his third day of public use," Zaela says with a rough grin, seeing where his gaze lies.

"Ex-excuse me?" Wrathion stutters for perhaps the first time in his life. He realizes with displeasure that his mouth has been hanging open an inch, and he closes it with a snap and then scowls at himself and the grinning orcish warlord. _Use_. Wrathion's chest feels tight. He glances up at the heart again, then back at Anduin.

On the floor below the heart, only yards away from Anduin, is a sickly glowing blackish white stain, and Wrathion realizes the heart is dripping, or has dripped, into a sha puddle. Slowly dripping, beating or not? No droplet is visible on it, no little bead of poison looks about to fall. The heart looks dead. But it doesn't _feel_ dead, and Wrathion isn't sure he can stand to walk beneath the artifact.

Zaela nods, though Wrathion barely perceives it. "We only just returned from the East, so he's not been on display long. The warchief and a few of his greatest champions spent a short time breaking the prince's spirit," she says, and the relish in her voice suggests she might have been one of those few. She chuckles as if at some private joke. "A very short time."

A seething spike of rage goes through him like an arrow, but Wrathion maintains a neutral tone. "He is a prince and a priest and barely an adult. Did you expect him to endure torture like a seasoned middle-aged soldier? A Kor'kron perhaps?" He realizes his claws are gripping the stone of the balcony too hard, and he drops them to his sides before he cracks the rock.

Zaela begins to stroll away from the overlook, back to the ramp going down. She's looking back at him with a small, amused smile now, and Wrathion resumes his approach of Garrosh's throne beside her, pressing his lips into a tight line. Side by side they turn the corner and descend to the main room, with Left and Right behind them, and Anduin and the heart are both temporarily out of sight. Anduin comes back into view first, through a strangely placed bit of fence.

"Torture," Zaela repeats thoughtfully, almost chuckling, and Wrathion wonders at her cryptic levity. "I suppose I would not," Zaela admits. "Still, he is puny even for a human, even for a young human. He is soft, and he can hardly walk. Like all his kind, he is fit only to kneel."

His mind is whirling at the thought of Anduin tortured, and when the prince of Stormwind comes back into view, Wrathion looks him over carefully. If it's anything permanent or truly damaging... but he's looking at Anduin, and it's puzzling, for while the boy has a number of scattered, faded scars, he has no visible wounds or freshly healed marks. Even if he'd healed himself with the power of his Light, if Garrosh had injured him, there would be signs. Wrathion can see clearly at a great distance and can see in the utter dark. He would be able to observe the signs if there were any. Anduin sits still on his mat as Wrathion watches him, and while he looks neither comfortable nor happy, he doesn't appear to be in any pain.

Perhaps they only tormented Anduin's mind? That thought isn't an encouraging one either.

Wrathion is staving off a scathing response and composing another even-tempered reply to Zaela when he notices, in his peripheral vision, yet another orc staring audaciously at him. Wrathion turns his head slightly only to realize the bulky green male orc off to the side isn't looking at him at all. The orc is gazing at Left behind him, looking her up and down blatantly if not quite undressing her with his eyes. General Nazgrim, Wrathion thinks, as he recognizes the orc, and he reviews in his mind the list of personages likely to be passing the time in this room. Wrathion knows them from the eyes and minds of a number of his Horde-side champions. Wrathion glances curiously back at Left, who's noticed but is ignoring the assessing stare, of course. Left is a professional. He's not sure what he expected.

Anduin hasn't noticed him approaching yet, even though it feels like Wrathion's been walking towards him for a good three minutes now. Wrathion's seen the old throne room through his champions' eyes, the one formerly used by Warchief Thrall, and that whole building could fit into a tiny corner of this vast underground chamber. Thrall's sense of opulence pales next to Garrosh Hellscream's.

Anduin's concentrating on his right knee, and the inside of his hand glows with holy energy. The prince presses his hand into his kneecap, rubbing languidly in small, practiced circles the way Wrathion's seen him do a thousand times before. But clothed, before. Always clothed.

He notices a small chest behind Anduin, wooden, bound with iron.

As they near the sha puddle, Wrathion casts a long, uneasy look up at the bottom of the organ. Zaela doesn't veer too close to the telltale muck, but she does walk underneath where the heart's shadow would be, if it cast a shadow. The upper reaches of Garrosh's sanctum are open, somewhere far above them, and it's as if a faint light is coming down but only filling the space with cloudy darkness. Wrathion carefully skirts the area directly beneath the heart, not wishing to be under it. He looks up, and the surface of the heart suddenly seems to swirl a little, shimmering and blurred. He blinks to ascertain he's not imagining the sight. But he hears no whispers, and for that, Wrathion is grateful.

The throne is immense and imposing. Two minimalistic chairs are set halfway up the steps to the throne on two small platforms, one to either side. The one on Anduin's side is occupied by an orc with gray skin wearing a great deal of red war paint. He murmurs something to the warchief, and Garrosh laughs, a rich deep laugh. This is Malkorok, the constant bodyguard and close adviser. Malkorok has a malicious glint to his eyes.

Anduin sits on the floor only a few strides away from him, looking at the floor.

Wrathion reaches the spot he presumes he's supposed to stand and executes a small bow. "Warchief Garrosh Hellscream," he says. "To finally meet you is a pleasure." Anduin's head snaps up at the sound of Wrathion's voice. Wrathion knows he should look at Garrosh, but he can't not look at Anduin. His Anduin, pierced and dressed like a whore and chained like a slave. Wrathion's toyed with the idea of having the prince of Stormwind since their first meeting. He isn't certain exactly when he started thinking of Anduin as his, but Wrathion's feelings for the human prince seem to have solidified under his own radar. His bodily response to seeing Anduin in his current predicament is like a firestorm of rage, hate, lust and possessive jealousy surging inside him.

He keeps himself presenting as calm and collected.

"Wrathion the dragon," Garrosh answers carelessly, and Wrathion wrenches his attention from Anduin and focuses on the orc lounging in the chair before him. The most notable thing about Garrosh is that he's enormous. It's not just Anduin; the vast majority of the mortal races would look small next to him. Garrosh is shirtless and powerfully built, showcasing his curling tribal tattoos. He wears plate and leather below the waist and his huge pit lord tusk armor over his shoulders.

But Garrosh's size and tattoos are not a surprise. What Wrathion had not anticipated is the way Garrosh... feels. There's a heavy darkness about Garrosh, an aura Wrathion senses that he does not like. Garrosh feels disturbingly similar to the heart he's hung.

Zaela walks past Wrathion, climbs halfway up the steps of the throne and seats herself in the empty chair to Garrosh's other side. "Sit," the warchief commands.

"Congratulations on your great victory," Wrathion says, leaving Left and Right a few steps behind and seating himself on one of two hard benches set a bit back from the throne, there for petitioners Garrosh deigns to make comfortable. Not that the benches are probably especially comfortable for mortals, with their low backs, but Wrathion's accustomed to rough furnishings, and far more importantly, sitting makes him less supplicant, more participant in a discussion. He appreciates that small but distinct difference, and he chooses the bench on Anduin's side of the throne. "You had my fast loyalty in your campaigns and will continue to have my full support in the days to come."

Garrosh smiles slowly on one side, and for a moment Wrathion wonders if Garrosh has heard about the dual nature of his assistance and is going to make an issue of it. "Very well. The Horde rewards those loyal to it. You shall be so rewarded."

"As it happens, I've come for Anduin Wrynn, so that should work out nicely," Wrathion tells Garrosh.

The warchief laughs at him. "Anduin Wrynn," Garrosh says slowly, as though he'd forgotten the name and is now tasting it on his tongue. "No. The prize of my throne room? I think not." Garrosh softly clicks his tongue twice, and Anduin ascends the stairs to Garrosh's throne on hands and knees, looking attentively at the warchief. Garrosh takes Anduin by the chin, tilting his face up and turning it a little to the left, a little to the right. Anduin allows the handling.

Wrathion is peeved. "But you just said--"

Garrosh interrupts, turning Anduin's head fully to one side and pushing his cheek down to the leather pants covering Garrosh's knee. Anduin closes his eyes. "I just said I'd reward you." Garrosh doesn't take his hand off Anduin's head.

"Given the aid and succor I provided to the Horde to ensure your faction would dominate Pandaria and conquer the Alliance in the Eastern Kingdoms and beyond--"

"I believe you exaggerate your importance to the Horde's victory," Garrosh interrupts again, a little condescending. Wrathion knows Hellscream is a brilliant military leader, deforested Ashenvale and burned Stormwind and the violet-dusted ruins of Theramore attest to that, but he would scarce have given Garrosh credit for the emotional intelligence sufficient to be condescending. Yet there it is, complete with curling lip, and clearly Wrathion has underestimated Hellscream, has not watched him enough. He doesn't like that thought. "Our warriors won our great battles, not your 'aid.'"

True, with all his talk of supporting one faction or the other Wrathion had offered little in the way of actual strategic military help, but it's still rancorous to have Garrosh brush off all his work so lightly. Wrathion's tempted to point out the dead-yet-alive organ of an Old God above them is what won the Horde's greatest battle thus far, but it seems wise for now to keep that sort of slight under his hat. "My craftsmanship is unparalleled, and I outfitted many of your best soldiers with items of great power, suited to their unique talents, to assist all of you in your endeavors."

"Yes, I have heard of this of you." Garrosh looks unimpressed. "You made a few magic cloaks." Abruptly and with roughness he pushes Anduin's head off his knee. Anduin stays by his legs for a few moments, then carefully slides down to the base of the stairs and back to his mat, his chains clinking as he moves.

" _A few_?" Wrathion nearly chokes. "Hundreds of cloaks and gems and weapons, though frankly, it feels more like thousands," Wrathion tells him. He can't resist a glance at Anduin. The human prince is watching him, and when their eyes meet, Wrathion feels a prickle at the base of his spine. "Items that--"

"If it's a slave you want, you may visit the internment camps inside or outside the city and take your pick. Humans, high elves, night elves, dwarves, draenei, gnomes..." Garrosh makes a face like he can't imagine why Wrathion would want a gnome slave, like he isn't sure why gnomes exist at all. "You may choose fifteen," Garrosh says. "Never let it be said that the Horde is not generous to its allies."

Garrosh probably gives slaves away like candy, Wrathion thinks, because he has heard of the conditions in the internment camps, and it must be hell trying to feed them all adequate to keep them alive. He frowns. "Fifteen slaves is not what I--"

"Perhaps the dragon prince would like to be serviced by the toothless lion babe," Zaela suggests. Garrosh slants a grin down at her.

Wrathion hates being interrupted. He's been cut off now four times in thirty seconds. Even worse than that, he hates being thrown for a loop, and this is the fourth time he's been disconcerted in the space of ten minutes. He's out of his element, and not in control of the situation, and he doesn't much care for it. He shoots a death glare at Zaela. The warlord raises an eyebrow at him.

"I would not," he says, turning back to Garrosh, and now he's more than a bit angry. _Serviced_. Wrathion does want Anduin, no question about it anymore really, but not like this, with Anduin a slave in this filthy orc city in this alarming throne room with Garrosh Hellscream, his dour bodyguard, two dozen Kor'kron, and an unnerving Dragonmaw warlord who won't stop eyeing Wrathion all looking on.

"I was coming to that conclusion myself, Zaela. Good then. Thirty slaves and the use of mine," Garrosh announces, as though he's an auctioneer and the item is sold, as if Wrathion's agreed and the matter is settled. "Whelp?"

For a split second Wrathion bristles in outrage, thinking Garrosh is addressing him, and then he realizes Anduin's crawling over to him, his chains clinking. The split of his ass, like his sex, is barely hidden beneath a short hang of blue fabric. Wrathion realizes suddenly what the blue cloth is and where's it's from... front and back, they're two pieces of Anduin's tabard. Wrathion had found some flimsy pretext to run his gloved fingertips lightly over Anduin's chest within an hour of their first meeting, and the garment was a fine silk. This cloth appears stiff, and the border has been cut off. But the color is right.

Wrathion can't take his eyes off Anduin as his broken golden prince approaches on his knees.

The crown is a masterful touch, Wrathion thinks despite himself. To keep Anduin crowned makes a mockery of all Anduin's forefathers, the whole genealogy of Stormwind's kings, a jape that the oh-so-noble line of Wrynns should end in a slim male bedslave chained and nearly naked in their old enemies' throne room. Garrosh may be a fool for thinking he can use an Old God to his own ends without deadly repercussions, but he knows how to mock a conquered foe with panache.

Anduin comes to kneel in front of Wrathion, tipping his blonde head up. Anduin's blue eyes are smoldering, making Wrathion wonder just how broken his spirit truly is, no matter what Zaela says, but Anduin doesn't look Wrathion in the face for long. He drops his fraught, defiant eyes and reaches into Wrathion's lap with both hands, one hand finding Wrathion's cock and stroking it through the cloth, the other searching low at his hips for the means to open his pants.

For a second Wrathion sits frozen, the weight of Anduin's heavy chains brushing over his knees, his cock starting to harden with Anduin's hand atop it, and then he grabs both Anduin's wrists by the manacles to stop his gentle rubbing and his clumsy attempts at excavation. Anduin settles back on his calves, wincing briefly. He obediently allows Wrathion to hold his manacles, looking down at Wrathion's gloved hands against the gray steel.

Even with his strong sense of smell, it takes Wrathion a few seconds to become fully aware of it, because Orgrimmar has the repulsive odor of unwashed orc, unwashed orc sex and excrement generally, but aside from the scent of Anduin himself, Anduin smells faintly of old sweat and dried blood, and more strongly of the rancid sweat and sexual fluids of between five and seven of Garrosh's people. The resulting scent, to Wrathion's nose, is like the most vile cologne ever mixed by a noseless forsaken alchemist. He moves his sharp eyes over Anduin again. Anduin's fine hair looks clean and light and not too oily, indicating he's been bathed relatively recently. Wrathion knows Anduin's hair gets darker and greasy-looking if he doesn't wash it every two or three days. Humans: the third most oily race next to murlocs and naga.

Despite only half wanting to, Wrathion draws a deep breath, deciphering the variations in the smells. Garrosh he expects, of course, all over Anduin, and Malkorok is heavily present, and he's galled to smell one of his own champions. Six orcs, he would guess. Two he can't match to a face, but off Anduin's mouth comes the scent of -- Zaela. Without moving his head, Wrathion flicks his gaze up to stare at the haughty orc warlord from under hooded eyes. He is going to kill everyone in this room and see this city razed to the ground. Zaela meets his eyes boldly, as though she's done nothing wrong.

But they've all done something wrong. They have crossed the Black Prince.

"Go back to your mat, Anduin," he says with authority. But Anduin doesn't move a muscle, doesn't so much as shift. Clearly Anduin only answers to Garrosh's whistle now.

"Stop this!" Wrathion glares up at Garrosh, still authoritative but not liking the note of trepidation in his own voice.

Garrosh sits back in his thone, seemingly well-satisfied. "If he displeases you, knock him to the floor."

"I'm not going to strike him." Wrathion is aghast. "You've displeased me by -- siccing him on me. You've displeased me by doing this to him."

Garrosh actually chuckles.

"This is... unacceptable," Wrathion says, getting angrier. He looks down at Anduin again. Anduin's hair, beneath the crown, is a shade longer than it was when Wrathion last saw him. Anduin remains silent, but his blue eyes burn hotter than any dragon's as they stare at each other. Anduin has dark circles under his eyes, Wrathion notices. He lets Anduin's shackled wrists slip a bit through his grasp so that instead of Anduin's bonds, he's holding Anduin's hands. He squeezes them a little but gets no response.

Anduin just stares at him, his hands slack in Wrathion's own. His slightly thinned-out face and the hollows under his eyes are what make the stormy look of his blue eyes so intense, Wrathion decides. He studies them for a few moments. Anduin's eyes brim with multitudes: animosity and defiance, half-mastered fear, sorrow and grief, and mingled shame and pride both.

Wrathion wants greatly to murmur comfort to Anduin, to whisper a reassurance, to promise him rescue. But with Garrosh seated on his throne, and Malkorok and Zaela to either side, all those eyes on him, he can say nothing if he wants to maintain his charade.

"You said nothing about wanting Varian's whelp for yourself," Garrosh points out.

Wrathion hadn't. He hadn't realized he needed to.

Oh, he'd known the union of the two factions into one would be bloody, would be violent, would mean thousands upon thousands of lives ended and millions more disrupted. Fathers who would never return home, brutalized mothers, children starving in sieges. The suffering would be awful. It would also be for a greater cause. The world had to achieve unity, and sooner was better than later. Wrathion hadn't foreseen Garrosh committing genocide, or all the surviving residents of Stormwind being decreed slaves, but that was war for you. There were surprises. The bottom line was that the stronger side needed to conquer, and the stronger side had turned out to be the Horde. Wrathion had had second thoughts when he learned Garrosh had procured the heart of an Old God to facilitate his victories, but by then it was too late.

Wrathion had not thought the horrors of war would directly touch any mortals he cared about. There were so few of them! He had been sufficiently diligent, he had thought, when it came to preserving Anduin's life. Doubtless Anduin would be upset about whatever ills befell his people and his kingdom if they lost, but as long as he stayed out of the fighting and didn't end up dead or a hostage, his person would be safe enough and that was what mattered to Wrathion. He had thought Anduin at the Shrine of Seven Stars when the sacking took place. Three of his agents had been assigned to watch Anduin and keep him at the Shrine, by force if necessary. None of them had reported Anduin returning to Stormwind, and heads were going to roll for the oversight. He'd found out days after the fact from an agent stationed in the human city. All in all, his Blacktalons, for all their skills, have done a wretched job keeping tabs on Anduin Wrynn. Wrathion's irked he had to stumble onto Anduin by actually walking into Garrosh's throne room himself. He vastly prefers to know things in advance, to plan and prepare, and it would have helped tremendously to know where Anduin was and how Garrosh was disposing of him.

Though judging by King Varian's nearly identical trouble keeping tabs on his son, Wrathion can hardly blame his agents. Anduin's slippery as a fish, and has always had a talent for putting himself in harm's way. Idiot boy. It's amazing he's lived this long.

In any case, Wrathion certainly hadn't thought ahead to tell Garrosh he wanted to stake a claim on Anduin like he was a choice parcel of land to be divvied up. What would that letter have read like? No, he'd intended to simply keep Anduin away from the conflict and either join him or collect him afterwards, when it was all over.

"I didn't realize I needed to call dibs," he says with disdain.

"The whelp is mine until I tire of him," Garrosh pronounces in his rough voice. "But I have others of high rank if that is what interests you. Proudmoore and Varian will stay here, but I have Greymane and the gnome king and two Alliance generals. I will grant you one as a token of my good will."

"No." Wrathion is quite sure Garrosh knows a slave of high rank is not what interests him. Garrosh is far cleverer than he was led to expect, and in his anger, Wrathion hadn't hidden his opinion on using Anduin so. Possibly that was a mistake, but it's too late to correct it now.

Garrosh's golden eyes narrow. Wrathion has the distinct impression the warchief is not accustomed to hearing flat refusals. "If the boy doesn't please you, I will have him beaten," Garrosh says pleasantly. He makes a surprisingly subtle gesture, for someone with such massive hands, to the far side of the room, and near the back wall, where there are no grated fire pits in place of braziers, Wrathion sees an eight foot high archway, outfitted with dangling manacles on varying lengths of chain. Wrathion stares at it for a moment, darkly imagining Anduin chained with his arms above his head.

A guard hurries over and places a coiled whip into Garrosh's hand. Use Anduin sexually, or see him brutalized, is that the choice Garrosh intends to set before him? Anduin has bowed his head again. Rage washes over Wrathion once more, and a tightening feeling in his chest, and this time he doesn't contain it all so masterfully. "To hurt him on my account is no way to repay me for the assistance I provided the Horde," Wrathion says, his voice nearly shaking with fury.

"Isn't it?" Garrosh's small eyes are sly. So he does know Wrathion was playing both sides. Garrosh grunts. "Very well. Whelp--our guest doesn't want you. Entertain him. Humiliate yourself."

Anduin draws away, and Wrathion lets him go. Anduin leans back and parts his legs, keeping his ankles close. He looks at the floor as he twitches the flap of blue cloth up, exposing his limp cock and his balls and a hint of the pale pink asshole beneath.

Wrathion's mouth feels dry. Garrosh is mocking him, tapping the tightly coiled whip against his leg. Garrosh is mocking him and mocking him a second time by debasing Anduin. The prince of Stormwind, still crowned, takes his cock in his hand and begins to stroke himself, moving his foreskin over his length. After a moment he presses a fingertip against his own asshole, tracing around it at first, then pushing inside. Anduin's cock remains flaccid.

Wrathion's possessed of enough rage for all of them, Garrosh for winning and for being stupid enough to use the heart of an Old God to do so, and Zaela and all those loyal to the Horde for blindly following him, and the humans of Stormwind for being conquered so easily, and Anduin too for getting himself into such a mess. Why is Anduin submitting to this treatment? He'd been been using the Light on his bad leg when Wrathion entered, so he's not being magically restrained in any way. The nuanced flash in his heavy eyes indicates he's under no form of mind control. And for all Garrosh's talk of beatings, there's not a fresh mark on Anduin that Wrathion can see, and he can see nearly every inch of Anduin.

Not for the first time, he wonders why he's trying so hard to save this world, full of idiots as it is.

But not that he wishes Anduin would fight. Garrosh would almost certainly kill the prince if he proved annoying. 

Still, this treatment is next-level demeaning. Anduin must very much want to live. An encouraging thought, actually.

A guard approaches and whispers into Malkorok's ear. Malkorok exchanges a glance and nod with Garrosh, then stands, stretching his shoulders open, his face cold and minatory as he addresses Wrathion for the first time. "You claim to support the Horde. To support the Horde, you need only do as the warchief commands," he rasps, and after a long, dangerous look at Wrathion he turns and walks towards the ramp going up.

Zaela remains sitting off to Garrosh's other side. Garrosh sits more directly in front of Wrathion, but with Malkorok gone, Anduin's head could be turned in such a way as to block both their views of Wrathion's mouth. He knows an opportunity when he sees it. The opening is stellar as well, with Malkorok's first and parting words to him. Wrathion expeditiously decides how he's going to handle at least the Anduin-related part of this stupid fiasco.

Wrathion rises and closes the two steps between him and Anduin, taking the human prince by the shoulders. Anduin opens his eyes and stops touching himself, his hands curling up loosely by his sides. He looks up at Wrathion with uncertainty, as though he isn't sure what's coming next.

Wrathion stares down at him and sighs. "I told you you were too soft to wear your father's crown," he says aloud, and he gently strokes the side of Anduin's cheek. Anduin sets his jaw and jerks his head away, the first resistance of any kind Wrathion's seen from him here, but Wrathion still has him by one shoulder, and his one-handed grasp is stronger than Anduin's ability to wrench away much. Going to one knee, Wrathion takes Anduin by the hair, not hard, but gripping enough of a handful to keep the boy's head positioned the way he wants it, tilted to one side with his neck on display. Anduin's heart begins to beat rapidly, but he doesn't fight Wrathion any further.

Wrathion extends his long dark tongue and with sensual slowness, he licks from Anduin's delicate collarbone all the way up to the top of his ear, lightly nibbling a little along the way. Anduin shudders, and Garrosh and Zaela watch them. 

Turning and tilting Anduin's head slightly, Wrathion makes as though he's repeating the lick on Anduin's other side, but as his mouth passes Anduin's ear, he whispers, barely audibly, "I'm going to get you out of this." He wetly licks the tip of Anduin's ear as he pulls back and leisurely withdraws his tongue, to make it look pleasing and authentic to Zaela, who follows all his movements with sharp, interested eyes.

He can at least leave now knowing he's reassured Anduin, though ... Anduin doesn't look particularly comforted, sitting on the floor loosely hugging his knees, with his eyes closed and his head bowed.

He leans in one more time and kisses Anduin on the forehead, tenderly, with his thumbs on Anduin's temples. Wrathion's heart feels like its in his throat, as though the words he's about to speak are real. "Goodbye, Prince Anduin," he says. "I regret things didn't work out differently between us." Then he straightens. Anduin doesn't open his eyes. His still-exposed cock shows no signs of becoming anything more than flaccid. Wrathion's already formulating a plan. To Garrosh he says only, "Very well, warchief. I am honored to accept your most generous gift. I should like to see the high elven slaves you have on hand first. Then the humans, I think."

* * * * *

Wrathion is dragon enough to admit when he's made a mistake, and as he walks back to his crude chambers at the inn after viewing a few dozen high elves and what feels like all the humans still alive in Azeroth trapped in the most squalid conditions imaginable, he berates himself. He'd been behind the Horde because he'd thought Garrosh's victory was all but assured, but he should have seen earlier that Garrosh was too unpredictable and too out of control to continue to serve as warchief of the Horde. Using the heart of an Old God--the damage Garrosh might do wielding the power of such an unholy artifact is only a few rungs up from the total annihilation that will be wrought by the Legion itself if Azeroth doesn't get its act together. Of the two of them, Anduin is usually the one to quibble about the means to an end, but Wrathion has a few lines you don't cross, too, and messing about with Old Gods makes the shortlist. Wrathion didn't slaughter all of his own corrupted kin just for Garrosh to drag the heart of an Old God out of its rocky grave and use it to wreak destruction all over Azeroth.

But Wrathion must be on good terms with the winners. He needs to be in a position of power to direct Azeroth's coming battle. He can still see the green fires in his mind's eye, sweeping over everything. He now might be forced to personally oversee regime change in Orgrimmar, and even that might not help if he steals Anduin and the bulk opinion of the Horde cements against him. Even with his aid, the Darkspear revolutionaries have little chance of unseating Garrosh. But he has to get Anduin out.

Anduin is his.

He snarls at no one in particular. 

He knows one thing--risky as it is for him to be in Orgrimmar, he was right to come here himself. He would not trust Anduin's rescue to anyone else, not to the greatest champion in all of Azeroth.

He'd looked at some elves for appearances' sake, but he'd had Left and Right select a collection of thirty humans. He'll have them portaled somewhere safe before he leaves the city. It's a bother he could have done without. But Anduin will probably want some of his own people around him once he's free.

Wrathion's mood changes entirely once he's inside and sitting and reading his messages. Three of his watchers have written with the most fortuitous bits of news he's heard since before the fall of Stormwind. Wrathion reads the missives and begins to smile. The tauren and the forsaken and the remains of the Alliance--the draenei and the night elves and the dwarves and gnomes--have mobilized their armies and are flocking to the side of the Darkspears. Wrathion intends to capitalize on that, as soon as he figures out whom to approach. Of course, having Anduin at his side, being Anduin's rescuer, will probably open all the doors he'll need. He intends to take Anduin regardless, no reason not to reap any and all benefits since he'll be scorching bridges with Garrosh's Horde. If Wrathion joins with this new alliance that's forming, an alliance that could perhaps be coaxed into a powerful faction, he will make sure this time that he's given the respect he is due from day one.

And join them he will. He reads the messages twice.

Now all he needs is a mage. One he can trust absolutely. He considers which of his champions to call upon. A Horde-side champion obviously, not a troll, to be able to freely move about the city. He requires someone with considerable talent, power and finesse who's brave, greedy, or crazy enough to tergiversate and cross Garrosh's Horde. Someone who, if they don't agree to do the job, can be relied upon to be bribed or intimidated into keeping their mouth shut.

A blood elf, perhaps, or a forsaken...

He may have to compromise on one of his requirements... the question is, which one. He's mulling over a short list of choices in his mind when someone knocks on the door. Left answers it. Wrathion has Left and one other orc follower taking shifts at the door. Garrosh's Horde has less respect for the other races, and Wrathion wants to keep all their heads down.

He's expecting Left to contact him mentally, or call to him aloud, or for a Blacktalon watcher to enter, but none of those things immediately happens. Impatiently, he focuses on Left, seeking to connect with her mentally. She allows the connection and with a blink Wrathion gets double vision, seeing the room around him and also seeing through her eyes. The orc at the door is General Nazgrim. 

Why is Nazgrim paying him a visit? This could be bad. [ _What does he want?_ ]

[ _To go on a hunt with me. Courtship ritual._ ] Left seems amused. [ _I'm about to tell him no._ ]

A courtship ritual. Ha! But Wrathion's mind races. [ _No. Wait. Don't... don't say no. We might be able to use this._ ] He senses Left's ripening abundance of doubt, but Left follows his orders without question.

"Well..." Left says aloud.

[ _Tell him--tell him you won't have any leisure time for two more days. Ask him if he wants to go on a walk._ ] He's thinking, of course, of all the walks he and Anduin took up to Mason's Folly and up and down the Veiled Stair. Wrathion often flew at Anduin's side, of course, but same difference. Walks are nice. Walks are--romantic. Walks are a good time for chats. And you learn things during chats.

[ _A walk._ ] Left's mindvoice is incredibly dubious, but when she speaks out loud she sounds normal. "Tomorrow's no good. My employer needs me present for the next two days," Left says aloud to Nazgrim.

"Then... in three days time?" Nazgrim looks and sounds... kind of nice, actually. Respectful, unlike some in Garrosh's miserable throne room.

[ _What I want is for you to find out where Jaina Proudmoore is, if you can. A high-ranking human prisoner on the side of the Alliance. A mage. Without raising suspicion._ ] It would be better, of course, for Right to make first contact with Jaina Proudmoore, because they're two humans and orcs and humans are both so hideously prejudiced, but Left will have to do. He needs a powerful mage, and from what he's heard, they don't come much more powerful than Jaina Proudmoore. Garrosh has no intention of releasing Proudmoore, either. Wrathion could rescue both of them. There are several advantages to be had here.

Left looks Nazgrim up and down. "All right. In three days then. In the meantime..." Left sighs silently to Wrathion, but she's resolute. [ _Yes, your Majesty._ ] "...I _am_ due for a break," she says, a little suggestively. "Will you show me around the city?"

Show her around the city. Oh, it's brilliant. Nazgrim looks faintly surprised, Wrathion sees, but the orc nods almost at once. "Yes."

"Let me tell his Majesty," Left says. "Just a moment."

Wrathion hurriedly slices a cut in the palm of his hand and fashions a red gem. He won't be able to see what Jaina sees, but he'll be able to communicate with her. It will be enough. With a thought and a gesture he creates a square of tan silk cloth, the better to blend in with the stone floors in this miserable city, and he wraps and ties the gem into it hastily. When Left rounds the corner where he's listening and is out of Nazgrim's line of sight, Wrathion presses the silk packet into her hand. 

[ _Get this to Proudmoore if you can. Don't risk it if you don't think you can without getting caught. Just find out where she is. But should you have the opportunity..._ ] Wrathion doesn't need to say any more. Left is skilled and intelligent, and he trusts her implicitly.

Left nods, tucking the cloth-wrapped gem into her vest between her breasts, and she heads out with Nazgrim.

* * * * *

He's itching to communicate with Left, but he holds himself in check. Manipulating mortals requires concentration, he knows that better than anyone.

Left finally contacts him almost two hours later. [ _It's done. She's in a cell under the city, in a wing not too far from Hellscream and Prince Anduin. Not too heavily guarded. I made eye contact and tossed the gem between the bars. I'm on my way back now._ ]

Wrathion is genuinely impressed, and he freely allows his pleasure to transverse their mental connection. [ _Left, you are a credit to your kind. I must be rubbing off on you._ ]

Left has no sense of humor, and she mentally rolls her eyes at him. [ _Thank you, your Majesty._ ]

He cuts the communication and hones in on the other gem.

[ _Jaina Proudmoore?_ ]

He feels the brush of her thoughts, a new mind, foreign to him, so she's holding the gem. But she's startled and suspicious. [ _Who is this?_ ]

[ _I am the Black Prince Wrathion._ ]

[ _The... the son of Deathwing?_ ] Jaina's mindvoice sounds rife with disbelief.

[ _The same._ ]

[ _Why am I holding this jewel? What do you want?_ ]

[ _A great many things. I am taking up the cause of the Alliance. The first item on the agenda is to get Prince Anduin out of Orgrimmar. But I need your help, and judging by your situation it seems you need mine._ ]

Jaina digests that for a second, and she seems confused. [ _I know he's your friend, and I love Anduin, I do... but if you want to help the Alliance, why not start with King Varian?_ ]

She obviously doesn't know. And Wrathion isn't sure how to put it sensitively. [ _Garrosh has Prince Anduin in the throne room._ ] His mental voice is clipped. [ _Being used by high-ranking visitors and the upper echelons of the Horde military. And not for his delightful conversational skills._ ] It would be impolitic to add that he doesn't give two silvers about Varian Wrynn. He might prefer the more congenial and pliable King Anduin Wrynn, who is fond of him, in fact, for his half-generated plan.

A few heartbeats pass. [ _Used?_ ]

Wrathion finds he suddenly doesn't want to communicate with her anymore. A current of frustration courses through him. He should never have allowed Anduin to leave his side. [ _Yes. I'm going to rescue him. We do not have a lot of brute force, only a handful of my agents, but I have formidable powers and intelligence and you're supposed to be a skilled mage, surely together we can get him out of there. Really all I need is for you to teleport us in, follow and not make a lot of noise while we find him, and then teleport us all out._ ]

Again, Jaina's silent for a few moments. Then she thinks, hesitantly, [ _He's in Garrosh's throne room, you said?_ ]

Wrathion nods once, though she can't see him. [ _The new throne room, underneath the city. He may sleep in one of the side rooms or in the main chamber. I'm not sure. But my agents will secure an area somewhere inside, you can teleport us in, we'll locate him, and then you can teleport us all out._ ] It's frustrating how much he doesn't know.

[ _Whoever's in charge of security will have had spells put on, magical wards to prevent just anyone from teleporting directly in or out. I mean, usually. So I can't just teleport us in there, and I can't disable them and create a portal out at the same time. But if we can slip into the hall and you or another mage can temporarily tamp down the wards, I can teleport us out._ ]

[ _Fine. Excellent. I don't know enough about magical wards. I mean I have the idea, but ... explain them to me again. I'm sure I can do that._ ] He looks over his shoulder and hisses at his remaining bodyguard. "Right! Have someone get me some books on magical wards."

[ _They're like locks? Magical locks. You can open a padlock if you have the key, or you can force the lock or break it._ ] Jaina's mindvoice slips into a patient tone and accessible pace, that of an educator, and Wrathion is reminded she had an apprentice killed in Theramore. [ _You're going to force it. Suppressing the wards will be manageable, assuming you have the raw power you claim._ ] Jaina thinks it with some curiosity. [ _Certainly easier than mastering portal magic. Even if you can't conceal your tampering, we'll be long gone by the time they notice. You'll want to get in the area to try to feel out the wards, to get a better idea whether you can force them down. Not to actually push against them, that will set them off. You don't want to trip them, just... get a feel for them. You'll probably be able to tell whether you can manage it or not._ ]

[ _I'll read up on the subject, and I can improvise when the time comes. I am quite confident in my own abilities._ ] 

Though Wrathion has never met Jaina Proudmoore, he has seen her a little through others' eyes, and from her tone of voice, he can almost picture the wariness on her face. [ _So I've heard. But since Anduin's safety depends on it, perhaps you could make as sure as possible before we leap in? We're only going to have one shot at this, I'm guessing?_ ]

Anduin's safety, what a joke that is. But she's not wrong. [ _I can pay Garrosh another visit, if you absolutely insist. Where will you teleport us? We'll want to get far away from here. Somewhere safe._ ]

Jaina hesitates. [ _We could go to Dalaran. Or the Shrine of Seven Stars. Or Darnassus. Or... anywhere really._ ]

Dalaran. The City of Mages. Dalaran hadn't even occured to him. His confidence grows as Wrathion thinks about it. Anduin will be quite secure in Dalaran, and they'll both be far from Horde clutches, but able to quickly transport anywhere they need to go to consult with the leaders of the rapidly expanding revolution against Garrosh. [ _Yes, Dalaran. That's your home, isn't it? That will be most suitable._ ]

[ _There's one other thing. Kalecgos is here with me._ ] Wrathion feels the unhappiness radiating from Jaina through their connection. [ _He's in some kind of magical sleep. I don't want to leave him, but I can't move him or wake him._ ]

What does Jaina expect him to do about that? [ _Then he's staying. There are only seven of us, myself and my agents. Even if you could float him about, it'd be too risky. Prince Anduin is our focus. No complications, no distractions._ ] He can feel the offense she takes to him calling her lover a distraction, but Wrathion doesn't care.

[ _But what about Varian?_ ]

Wrathion sighs inwardly. [ _What about him?_ ]

[ _You can't say he's a distraction. We should try to get him out too._ ]

[ _Is he there with you, or do you know where he is? Because no one else seems to. Garrosh mentioned having him, but who knows where. We can't get him out if we don't know where he is, and my people have taken enough risks already getting to you._ ]

Jaina has no good answer for that, and finally he feels her sigh. [ _Alright, just Anduin then._ ]

[ _And you,_ ] he reminds her assiduously.

She's reluctant, he thinks, to leave Varian and her blue dragon, but she agrees. [ _I'll gladly help you. Tell me what you want me to do._ ]

[ _Bide your time, for now. I'll come for you tomorrow night._ ]

* * * * *

Hellscream likes to keep his petitioners waiting, and last time it irritated Wrathion, but today Garrosh's arrogance suits his needs. As he stands in the waiting chamber, Wrathion reaches out with his mind. He can't obviously perform any magic with the eyes of twenty-four Kor'kron on him, but he's able to stretch out his senses and feel the wards surrounding the enormous halls. He grasps at them with his mind, and they're slippery, and there are many of them, but he focuses, isolating each in his mind and picturing them as candles he can dim or even snuff out. He's fairly sure he'll be able to quash them sufficient for Jaina to portal them out when the time comes.

After about twenty minutes, he's escorted by an orc lackey into the throne room. He doesn't walk to the overlook this time, heading straight down the walkway. He nearly stops dead a second time, but this go-round he's prepared himself for anything, and he continues walking despite the surge of seething rage and possessiveness that flashes through him like a flood.

Behind closed lips, Wrathion grits his sharp teeth. He keeps walking and tries to look at the pair on the petitioners' bench analytically, with detachment, as he approaches them.

Anduin Wrynn is on the lap of Lor'themar Theron, leader of the blood elves, whom Wrathion recognizes even from the back by his hairstyle and the distinctive regalia he wears over his shoulders. Anduin faces away from the elf regent, his back to Lor'themar's front. Anduin's eyes are tightly closed as he moves up and down on Lor'themar's cock, and he's hard now, the fingers of one hand moving over his own dick in rhythm with the penetration. Anduin uses his other hand to balance on the back of the bench. He moans a little on Lor'themar's upthrusts.

Lor'themar keeps a steady hand underneath Anduin, supporting him and helping bounce him. Wrathion supposes that must be helpful, considering that with Anduin's lingering infirmity he can scarcely put much pressure on his right leg in such a position. Lor'themar has the muscled but slim build of a male warrior elf, but he looks both large and tall with Anduin riding him. The elf is fully dressed in red and gold and black plate and chainmail, with only his pants open and revealing anything. With his free hand Lor'themar touches Anduin considerately over his chest and stomach and hips, his artful motions obviously intended to provide pleasure to the human prince, but he has such a composed look upon his face, Wrathion feels certain he's thinking of something else or pretending he's elsewhere. Lor'themar looks like a skilled lover, Wrathion decides, not that he would particularly know what that looks like, but it's the impression he gets.

Wrathion has stopped grinding his teeth by the time he reaches the bench where Lor'themar is fucking Anduin.

Garrosh waits until Wrathion is practically standing on top of them before announcing, "Lor'themar. You may go."

Wrathion had been half-expecting to hear Garrosh call the regent lord "elf." But no, a first-name basis. Not particularly respectful, a little familiar perhaps given the sin'dorei love of all the little subtleties and formalities, but not disrespectful either.

Lor'themar bows his head, puts his hands under Anduin's thighs, and lifts Anduin up and off of him as if the prince weighs little more than a sack of flour. Anduin moans softly as Lor'themar's cock slips out of him. Gently Lor'themar sets Anduin down on the bench, right where Lor'themar himself had been sitting, but he doesn't even look at Anduin. The unreadable look on Lor'themar's face is directed momentarily towards Wrathion. Lor'themar's cock is long, and thicker than he would have guessed, Wrathion thinks, eyeing it solely because it's been in Anduin. Quickly, but gracefully, Lor'themar seals his erection back in his pants and bows formally to Garrosh. "Warchief."

Garrosh waves him away, and Lor'themar goes. His eyes meet Wrathion's again on the way out and Wrathion sees behind the facade for a moment--Lor'themar is furious. Wrathion lifts an eyebrow at him, but Lor'themar is already gone, heading for the walkway up. A shame. Wrathion would very much like to talk a few matters over with the elf regent. Perhaps he can find Theron later. He wouldn't be surprised to find out Lor'themar's heading straight from here south to the mutinous Darkspears.

Anduin stays where he's placed on the bench without looking at Wrathion. After a few seconds he drops the little skirt back over his still-erect penis, covering himself. He doesn't say anything.

It's a power play, Wrathion realizes, just like Garrosh pointlessly making his visitors wait half an hour for face time with him. Offering Anduin to Lor'themar--or more likely, forcing Anduin on a coerced Lor'themar--and then dismissing him before he reaches climax to remind everyone exactly who's in charge here. Though Wrathion doesn't think that's why Lor'themar was angry. And he realizes too--Garrosh is playing him also by making him a witness to them fucking, suspecting or guessing at Wrathion's true feelings about Anduin. He hadn't hidden his care for Anduin, no, but had he made the contents of his heart so obvious?

Either way, Garrosh is taunting him. Garrosh seems to enjoy alienating his allies. But this time Wrathion will not be so easily baited.

"Elves, hm?" Garrosh chuckles at Anduin. "Elf cock? Is that what you like, whelp?"

Anduin lowers his eyes. "I guess," he says quietly, as though he honestly doesn't know.

"You might as well finish, boy. If you can." The final three words are tossed out scornfully, as though Garrosh doubts Anduin's ability to orgasm.

Anduin pushes the little blue flap aside and begins to slide his foreskin back and forth over his still-hard cock, keeping his eyes submissively downcast. His chains sound with every stroke as his hand moves.

Malkorok and Zaela sit below and to either side of Garrosh's throne, as before. "Never let it be said the toothless lion doesn't try his hardest," Zaela says, facetious with a straight face. Garrosh snorts.

Malkorok's lips are tight watching Anduin, as though he disapproves. "You indulge him like a pet, warchief. You should let me mount his head on a pike to the north and his soft body on a pike to the south." His grumble is gritty, deep but oddly breathy, his disagreement sufficiently low-pitched that it does not carry beyond the few of them. Wrathion might not have caught it at all if not for his sharp hearing.

"All in good time. He serves where he is, for now," Garrosh says, and his pronouncement is the last word. Malkorok bows his head to Garrosh respectfully.

Garrosh finally turns his attention to Wrathion and growls a rude greeting at him. "Sit, dragon."

"Warchief." Wrathion politely sits down next to Anduin, listening to the prince's quickened heartbeat. He must have been near to orgasm when Garrosh stopped them. Wrathion's elbow brushes against Anduin's bare arm, but Wrathion forces himself to look at Garrosh.

Anduin's chains clink next to him.

Garrosh stares him down, and Wrathion has a moment of irritation that Garrosh is not flustered whatsoever by his red eyes and clearly intimidating person. "You again. What do you want?"

Wrathion's considered in his mind what he plans to say, but Anduin's proximity and current activity throws him a little off his game. He makes himself focus. "I was dissatisfied by your observation that I didn't help the Horde in its recent victories sufficient to impress you. So I would like to take on some responsibilities," he tells Garrosh as sincerely as he's able. "If you will honor me with some. To help the Horde. How may I contribute?"

Garrosh laughs, a dark sound. "Ha! The little dragon wants to help. I'm sure we can think of something," he says, showing white teeth.

It takes Wrathion real restraint not to set the warchief's head on fire.

"I'd love to ride him," Warlord Zaela murmurs to Garrosh. The way she says it, she sounds like she wants to put the Demon Chain around Wrathion's neck and sink spurs into his scaled sides right then. Does she not realize how small he truly is? Her voice is so low and rich, for a second Wrathion wonders if that's even the kind of riding she's talking about, or whether its a disturbing double entendre. Surely a rabid orc supremacist wouldn't be interested in mating with a dragon. Surely.

Wrathion glances at the warlord, and who can blame him if it's a trifle nervously. The Dragonmaw are infamous for breaking dragons' minds; caution here is well deserved. "That will have to wait until I'm a bit older and larger," he says, as diplomatic as possible and a response that works on both levels.

"Perhaps we could have you artificially aged," Zaela suggests.

"Well, that's... that's something to think about," Wrathion says uncomfortably. Magical aging and de-aging is a notoriously dicey business.

"Have no fear, dragon prince. As our ally, you would be treated by any rider with the utmost respect," Zaela assures him.

The insinuation that he has reason to be afraid or that he would put up with anything less than deferential treatment annoys him, but he never gets a chance to answer.

Beside him, Anduin moans, a quiet sound. At first Wrathion doesn't allow himself to glance over. But Garrosh and Zaela are both staring, like what Anduin's doing now is something they haven't seen before, and even Malkorok is grudgingly peering at Anduin instead of him, so Wrathion lets himself casually look that way too, as if he's only looking at Anduin because they are.

Anduin's head is tipped back, his lips parted, his eyes closed, his legs spread. His expression is one of concentration. He moves his foreskin rapidly back and forth over his cock, his other hand cupping his balls. His forehead and chest are wet with sweat. His lower back moves slightly, quivering as his hips thrust in little movements. Anduin's blond hair is messier than before, with some fluffed up and out from under his crown as though he's run his fingers through his hair to the extent the crown allowed, and more damp strands stick to his forehead. Wrathion forgets to inhale for a second.

Anduin's breathing hard, and his balls visibly pull up and tighten in his hand. He moans again as he comes, a stifled sound, and he comes quite a lot, splashing his stomach and thighs. He strokes his shaft well beyond the point he spurts. Wrathion watches the white liquid as it trickles with glacial slowness down in a couple of places.

Anduin finally stops and sits still for a few seconds and then opens his eyes. Wrathion's rather expecting him to shrink into himself when he realizes all eyes are on him, but Anduin only glances around at them, sighs, squares his shoulders and lowers his eyes. He uses the flap of fabric to wipe his stomach and thighs as best he can before he covers his diminishing penis, avoiding all their direct gazes. 

Garrosh points at Anduin to get his attention, and then Garrosh points straight down, as though Anduin is a dog that knows better than to be up on the furniture. Anduin slides himself forward off the bench and down onto the stone floor next to Wrathion's legs, his chains clinking.

"Well," Garrosh says, turning to Wrathion, "You've seen what the Horde can do. What do you think?"

This time Wrathion knows a double-ended statement when he hears it. Wrathion looks Garrosh in the eye. There's darkness there. So much darkness Wrathion can physically feel it and imagines he almost see it swirling around the warchief. Y'shaarj is dead, but the heart has been whispering to the orc, seductive whispers, Wrathion is sure. "The Horde is more powerful than it's ever been. I like powerful." He pauses, then adds, "Magically aging me is a most intriguing idea, one I'd not thought of." He nods to Zaela, because it's true, he hadn't. "I hope you'll consider my offer, and where and how I might best help."

"I will. For the Horde!" Garrosh says.

"For the Horde," Wrathion echoes, bowing.

Malkorok clicks his tongue and beckons Anduin forward with a hand that only has three fingers, and Anduin crawls over and up to him, kneeling upright between the orc's widely spread knees. Malkorok grips Anduin by the hair much more tightly than Wrathion had, his manner casually abusive. Anduin makes a tiny repressed sound of pain as Malkorok pulls him forward by his golden hair, taking up Anduin's leash also and winding it around his hand, and Wrathion sees the prince flinch in profile as Malkorok murmurs something meant for Anduin's ears alone.

Wrathion doesn't want to leave, but he has little choice. He's not so arrogant as to think he can take on Garrosh, Zaela, Malkorok, and the four dozen Kor'kron in these two chambers with just Left and Right at his back, and go on to make it out of here with Anduin. Certainly Left and Right would not make it. He has to work with subtlety. He has to stick to the plan.

Anduin does not look up at the dragon prince as he goes.

* * * * *

Wrathion sits down in the shabby, scratched-up wooden chair at the shaky table (oh, how he hates this city) to pen two messages. One to Lor'themar and one to Vol'jin. He seals each parchment with a drip of hot black wax and the curving impression of one of his claws, and he hands both off to one of his Blacktalon watchers. "Deliver these, wait for responses. Then meet us in Dalaran as soon as you can," he tells the rogue quietly. "And watch your back, too many of you have gone missing." The watcher bows and slips out. Wrathion contacts the others he wants with his mind. Depending on the answers he gets from Vol'jin and Lor'themar, he'll probably want a few more of his agents on hand and ready to travel.

Things are going to happen quickly now. Which is fine with Wrathion.

Wrathion turns the situation around in his mind, trying to decide whether he's thought of everything. He realizes he has not. Anduin can barely walk unassisted, and he's worse than naked in that semen-saturated loincloth and boots that probably haven't been removed in days. Wrathion rises, trying to recall the exact length of Anduin's cane. Wrathion creates an elegant cane of black laquered wood, thinks another moment and fashions a high-collared white silk dressing gown that buttons closed in the front. Nothing fancy, just something to throw on Anduin temporarily so he won't have to traverse the streets of Dalaran wearing Garrosh's little rapeslave costume.

He makes Proudmoore an outfit too, because Left reports her dress was a dingy gray and white and purple affair. He fashions a black silk top with long sleeves, with matching pants that flare out as they descend and then taper all the way in at the ankles. He thinks again and adds a hood to the top to hide her white hair. Wrathion does take a certain pride in his people being handsomely garbed and equipped for their needs. Proudmoore is, however temporarily, one of his movers. And he wants her in black not least because they'll be sneaking in the dead of night through half the underground chambers beneath Orgrimmar.

This had better work. He's potentially risking his life, and thus the survival of all of Azeroth, for the life of one mortal. It's shamefully terrible to be a genius doing something witlessly stupid, even if he's well-prepared and undertaking the doltish action in the smartest possible way.

But risk is a part of life, and Wrathion feels confident. The plan will work. He will get Anduin back.

Wrathion folds the white robe a couple of times and puts it in his leather satchel. He gathers up the black garb and stuffs those garments on top. He takes up the cane, holding it like a scepter. Normally he'd have one of his agents carry his things, but he wants both his bodyguards and his four Blacktalons to be readily available to slice orc necks.

* * * * *

They head into the halls underneath the city. Left and Right and the other Blacktalons dispatch the guards silently with quick cuts to their throats. They strike fast and with dizzyingly fatal accuracy. Wrathion normally adores watching Left and Right work as a team. They know one another so well, strengths, weaknesses (there aren't many of those, but they know each others' intimately), preferences, decision-making, everything. But tonight he's feeling too anxious and unsettled to appreciate the sight of their considerable mayhem properly. Left leads their group, simply because she's been here before, though she drew a map each of them looked over, so all of them could memorize the route.

They pass through a long hallway and slice open two more guards' necks. Most of the Kor'kron seem to be in pairs, with a foursome here and there. Left and Right drag the corpses back from the dark iron door they were guarding, and Right pushes it open. Within is a large cell holding a human.

Jaina Proudmoore stands awake and ready behind the bars. Her wrists are bound by glowing manacles, closely fastened.

The half-elf, half-human shaped blue dragon behind her lies asleep and breathing slowly and steadily on a strange wooden slab on the floor. Wrathion morphs into his human form and looks at the sleeping dragon.

Jaina follows his gaze and bites the inside of her lip. Her voice is a whisper. "If we had more time..."

"We don't." Wrathion has no idea how to deal with a magical sleep, and indeed they do not have time. 

He was planning to simply weaken and break the lock of the cell, but the key is hanging up on the wall, so he takes it and opens Jaina's prison cell door the old-fashioned way.

Jaina looks up at him, imploring and a bit plaintive and quite beautiful. "Can you give me just a minute to try?"

Right follows him into the cell, leaving Left and his other four agents stationed outside to watch for trouble. Just out of curiosity, Wrathion grabs the dragon's arm and tries to move it, but the limb doesn't budge an inch.

Every minute's delay is another minute a patrol might come along and see guards missing from their posts, or stumble over their dragged-aside corpses. He relents with a sigh nonetheless. "You may have half a minute."

"Thank you," Jaina whispers. She holds her cuffed hands out to him.

Wrathion draws close to her and murmurs into her ear. "I want you to know that if you leave me and mine behind tonight or double-cross me in any way, when I or my Blacktalons find you, you will live long enough to regret it." He takes both her hands in his to examine the glowing manacles.

Jaina does not seem especially comfortable with his touch, and she stiffens imperceptibly when he puts his mouth near her ear to speak to her, but it is the the mildly issued threat that turns her expression cross, and her whisper back is irritable. "Garrosh Hellscream is my worst enemy. Anduin is like a son to me. I might not like everything I've heard about you, but I appreciate what you're doing for Anduin, and I don't betray my allies." Her final words are bitter, making no secret of the fact Proudmoore's a woman who's known treachery.

Wrathion often ultimately judges people less by the words they utter and more by their behavior and their reactions to things, and her manner as she answers satisfies him well enough. He puts his claws directly on the bindings and concentrates, finding the source of their power and extinguishing it with a surge of his own draconic magic. Manipulating the metal, he pulls the shackles open. Jaina rubs her wrists and stretches her arms gratefully as she's freed, and rolls her shoulders with relief evident on her face. Wrathion bends to place the cuffs quietly on the floor.

Jaina goes to Kalecgos' side, putting her hand on his shoulder, then the center of his chest. Wrathion waits impatiently, but he agreed to thirty seconds. Jaina says a couple of incantations, but she doesn't even take the full half minute, turning towards him with unshed tears in her eyes. "It's no use," she whispers.

"We can still save Prince Anduin," Wrathion murmurs. "Here, I made you these. Put them on," he says quietly, and holds out the garments he made earlier.

Jaina's eyes drop to the clothes in his claw, but she doesn't take them. "I'm fine in this," Jaina whispers, though she's clearly been wearing the same grungy dress for the length of her captivity, and her discomfort with the idea of changing is visible on her face.

"You'll stand out like a beacon wearing that. I gather this is your first cloak and dagger escapade."

"Hardly," Jaina hisses.

"It's the middle of the night, and we're underground where it's pitch black." Wrathion is sick of whispering. "I don't want my head to end up on a pike because some Kor'kron spotted your white dress. Or your hair."

"You're wearing light colors."

"When we leave this cell, I'll be black head to claw. Are you daft, or just stubborn? You are delaying us!"

"Fine," Jaina whispers back hotly. She finally takes the clothes from him, nearly snatching them out of his claw, and she glares at him until it occurs to him that he's expected to turn his back so she can dress. He wants to sigh, because they don't have time for false modesty, but he has the impression hers isn't false, so he spins on his heel and crosses his arms. Right stays facing Jaina and watching her as the mage changes clothes without Wrathion instructing her to.

"Alright. I'm ready," Jaina whispers. Wrathion turns his head, nods approvingly and shifts back to his true body. 

With a last, longing glance at Kalecgos, Jaina follows them out.

No alarms are raised as they move silently through the vast rooms, cautious for unseen guards in the near-total darkness. Left guides them back on track to the dirt-packed hallway that leads to the inner sanctum's waiting chamber. Matched torches here and there on the walls provide the only light. Left is cautious and the going is slow, but they make it to the rough-hewn passageway with a few more Kor'kron dead and without disaster. Left and Right came prepared to create several distractions to get the guards inside to open any doors bolted shut, but once the guards are dead, all doors lie open to them. Finally they reach the last door. Wrathion wants to fly ahead to the balcony, but it would be unwise. Left and Right still need to go first, to scout.

He breathes out in relief as they reach the overlook. "Garrosh is careless with his possessions," he murmurs as they get a look down into the throne room, to cover up the fact that Wrathion has never been so relieved to see Anduin in his life. Wrathion resists the impulse to fly down to him. A good plan is utterly worthless if one doesn't adhere to it.

They descend to the throne room quickly and quietly. Left and Right silently execute two more guards on the way.

The great braziers to either side of the throne have been extinguished, but the underground room is lit, even in the dead of night, by the searing red heat from the grated pits along the walls. Anduin's curled up asleep on the thin mat at the foot of the warchief's throne. He's removed his crown to sleep, Wrathion notices. Not surprising, he's heard crowns are usually hideously uncomfortable to wear. Anduin's features have smoothed out in slumber, and his face looks peaceful. In repose, he still resembles the easygoing Anduin who had a boyish laugh and smiled easily. The new Anduin, who stares and obeys and whose eyes smolder, has vanished into sleep.

As they near him, Jaina's eyes move over Anduin's form on the floor, taking in the outfit and the piercings and the chains.

"Oh, Anduin," Jaina whispers, as though it's a prayer, as though her heart has been shattered into as many pieces as Anduin's fragile human bones were.

With an unsettled glance upwards to the unbeating heart, feeling like the dead thing is watching them, Wrathion shifts smoothly from flying in his draconic form holding the satchel and cane in his claws to walking in his mortal form wearing the satchel across his body, the cane hanging from it. As he walks he begins his spell to push down the wards preventing teleportation. He slowly outstretches his arms, feeling the magic in the air, but he has older magics, older power, in his blood and veins and scales. He takes a sharp breath and hisses it out, feeling the wards and gathering them in his mind, pushing down on each too hard and fast and too much at once for any alarms to be raised.

The act only takes a few moments, he performs it while walking towards Anduin, but he's surprised by how much it takes out of him. Forcing back magical wards without tripping them is unexpectedly intense. When his spell is done and he's holding the wards back, he opens his eyes. His vision is actually a little bit blurred from the mental exertion and the focus. "It's done, Jaina," Wrathion says, blinking the blur away. "I have them." 

He reaches Anduin, Left and Right shadowing him closely, and he says quietly, "Anduin. Wake up." His instinct is to put a hand to the boy's hip and gently shake him, he'd woken Anduin from naps at the Tavern a few times like that, but it seems unwise to touch Anduin so now. Just going by the little Wrathion's seen in this room, Anduin might wake up in a panic.

Focusing to weaken the metal and muttering a spell to infuse his hands with additional strength (because he doesn't know if the chains are enchanted, and nothing would be quite so embarrassing as failing to succeed at tearing a substance of earth apart on the first try), he bends down and with ease rips the heavy chains off Anduin's manacles one by one.

Anduin's eyes fly open at the movement and the noise. He looks at Wrathion, then blinks and notices Proudmoore. Anduin comes awake quickly after that, sitting up, his eyes wide. "Jaina?" Anduin says, sounding surprised.

"Doesn't she look lovely? You may have a beautifully touching reunion in a just a minute. First let's get you out of here," Wrathion says breezily, offering Anduin a claw to help him to his feet.

"No," Anduin says, suddenly, bizarrely angry, drawing back from Wrathion's gloved claw as if it's a dangerous serpent. "No. Get out of here. I won't go. Leave--leave right now!"

Wrathion frowns and exchanges a confused glance with Jaina, who looks as puzzled as he feels. "Are you mad, Anduin? Get up. And lower your voice." To Jaina he says, "Jaina, do it now!" But he sees Jaina looking at Anduin and listening to him, and Jaina's hesitating because Anduin doesn't want to go. Idiot! "Jaina!" Wrathion hisses at her.

Anduin stares at Wrathion for a moment, looking from him to Proudmoore. Then Anduin says, "I'm sorry, Aunt Jaina." Wrathion sees the wetness on his cheeks, and Anduin does something Wrathion would never in ten thousand years have expected--he screams. He screams a name. "GARROSH!"

Whatever else might be wrong with him, frail bones, a permanent limp, apparent brainwashing--Anduin inarguably has good lungs. The wall of sound is so unforeseen it stuns all of them for a moment, and Wrathion himself recoils a little.

From the far hallway on the opposite side of the room, an orc's shout goes up. An alarm. Fabulous.

"WARCHIEF!" Anduin screams, and the sound of his voice echoes all around the cavernous throne room. Without standing, still wearing his manacles but freed from his chains, he clumsily scrambles backwards.

"HELP ME! THEY'RE TAKING M--" Left is the first to recover, leaping forward and bending and clapping her hand over Anduin's mouth, pulling him up. Anduin struggles against her but there's not even a contest as to who's stronger. Anduin is not easily subdued, but Left drags him towards Wrathion and Jaina, the human prince twisting and fighting in the circle of her arms, making muffled cries under Left's hand tight over his mouth.

Left emits an inarticulate swear of pain when Anduin manages to bite her fingers. "GARROSH!" he screams again. More noise and movement come from the opposite side of the room, and then a half-dozen Kor'kron are hurtling towards them, two charging well ahead of the other four. Wrathion knew a patrol would catch up to them eventually.

"Jaina!" Wrathion shouts. His hold on the wards is becoming tenuous with all these distractions. "Right _now_!"

Jaina's crying openly, though not sobbing. She lifts her hands, making little circles of pale blue arcane magic in the air, and the spell of teleportation catches them up as quickly as she'd promised.

* * * * *

They rematerialize in a small circular tower with blue stained glass windows and a purple stone floor. The two closest Kor'kron are caught up in the spell, but they're out of their element and well outnumbered to boot, and Right and the other Blacktalons immediately get the drop on them. Wrathion doesn't involve himself, he merely stands back and watches it happen. Left whirls around, still holding Anduin in her arms, and puts her back to the orcs, shielding Anduin and leaving herself vulnerable to their axes, and Right, anticipating Left's move to protect the prince, jumps in to cover Left's back with perfect synchronicity. Knife-work is easier in a small room than swinging a heavy axe, and both orcs are dead within seconds of their arrival. Right evidently picked up Anduin's crown, because she's wearing it around her wrist like an oversized bangle bracelet, keeping her wrist kinked so it doesn't slide off. When the orcs are dead, she nods satisfaction and wipes off her daggers on one of the dead bodies.

Anduin sags in Left's arms, defeated. Left's hand is bleeding where Anduin bit her, and she looks disgusted. She lets Anduin go, and he tumbles to his knees before climbing to his feet with a wince and an effort, leaning against the curved wall behind him. With Left's dark crimson blood smeared across his mouth giving him the disturbing look of a wild animal, Anduin shouts at Wrathion and Jaina both. "Why did you take me out of there?"

"Anduin, why wouldn't we?" Jaina asks, tearfully.

"I really wouldn't have thought he'd have had time to brainwash you so well," Wrathion says, exasperated with Anduin Wrynn.

Anduin ignores him, answering Jaina. "Because I said no! I told you to leave! Why didn't you listen to me?!" Jaina is speechless. Anduin rounds on Wrathion, standing only a few inches away. "So you decided 'for the Horde,' huh?" His voice is mocking, his darkly bloody lips contemptuous.

They've argued before, of course, many times, but Wrathion's never seen Anduin so next-level infuriated. "Would I be here with you if I had? You know I was playing both sides... at first." Wrathion waves away Anduin's suggestion as though it's absurd. "Garrosh won, so of course I had to tell him I was backing the Horde. But I have ultimately settled on aiding the Alliance," Wrathion says as artlessly as he can considering Anduin's witnessed quite a bit of him double talking his champions. "It was obvious by the end of his campaign in Pandaria that Garrosh needs to be put down. I mean, honestly, the heart of an Old God? You know my opinion on the Old Gods. So I have decided to side with the Alliance, and with the fragments of the Horde currently organizing a rebellion. I said what I needed to say to get you out of there."

"Ah, so you were just lying again. Astonishing. What a surprise."

Wrathion appreciates Anduin has just endured a likely extremely traumatic experience. Nevertheless, he'd expected less sarcasm and rage and more gratitude for getting Anduin out of Orgrimmar.

"Hardly," he snaps. "I was burning bridges. Garrosh will know I'm the one who stole you. I've just made myself persona non grata with the Horde when my entire purpose all along has been to protect Azeroth by unifying it against the Legion. Now how am I to lead that fight if Garrosh decides he'd like to chain a dragon head over the entrance to Orgrimmar the way your father so loves to do in Stormwind? I've risked everything to get you out." He nearly hisses the last words.

"Since you're just a whelp, he'd probably mount your head in his hall with the other small beasts," Jaina says, like she's trying to lighten the mood. Wrathion bares his teeth and snarls at her, and for a moment she looks both startled and alarmed. After Garrosh's sneering, it's a most gratifying reaction.

Anduin doesn't even notice. "You made my sacrifice for nothing," Anduin says accusingly, and his face is wet. Anduin's crying. With his back to one of the rounded walls, he slides down to the floor and buries his forehead in his knees.

Wrathion forgets about Jaina's crack, forgets about Right and Left with her bleeding hand and the other Blacktalons silently watching them. He drops low to one knee next to Anduin and studies him, as attentive as he's ever been in his life. He's never seen Anduin cry. "What sacrifice?"

Anduin turns his face to one side to look at Wrathion sideways. "A good king protects his people. A good prince, too," Anduin says flatly, tears still wet on his cheeks. "Not something you'd know anything about," he adds bitingly, but he seems to realize after he's spoken that it was a needlessly obnoxious dig, and though he doesn't say anything, his eyes briefly soften into a look that's vaguely apologetic. He takes a deep, gulping, steadying breath. "On the fourth day... Garrosh brought two citizens of Stormwind to me. A mother, and her baby. He gave me the choice of which one would be killed, the woman, or her child. Slowly. He threatened them and let me watch and there was an axe... and then he gave me a third choice. The third choice was that I swear to obey his orders, and he would let the woman leave with her baby. She would get something to eat, he said. And he said he had thousands of Alliance hostages whose fates I could decide."

So that was why Anduin hadn't been throwing holy fire around Garrosh's throne room. That's why he hadn't forced them to kill him, why he'd looked such an obedient if resentful whore. A coerced royal participant protecting the citizenry, even at the cost of his body and his dignity and the dignity of his house. People first. The whole thing is so very Anduin Wrynn, Wrathion starts to smile. But this would be a highly ill-advised time to grin, even though the sentiment behind it has roots in his deep and abiding affection for Anduin, so he keeps his mirthless appreciation to himself. Wrathion freezes the muscles in his face, stopping the expression short just as his lips pull back, displaying his sharp teeth and curling his upper lip to make a grim rictus. Excellent. Not inappropriate. Anduin once accused him of having no self-restraint, but he does, he does.

He glances up at Jaina, because he's not sure he wants anyone but himself--and his agents, whom he trusts completely--to hear the things Anduin might say next. He can't exactly get rid of Jaina though, it's not like he can just have one of his agents escort her out. A disadvantage of using her to get Anduin.

Jaina's weeping, he sees, although she does it silently and for that Wrathion is grateful. If Anduin shook with sobs, Wrathion knows him well enough that he would try to take the prince in his arms, but he would not know what to do with a sobbing Jaina Proudmoore. Tell Right to hold her, he supposes, the hypothetical bringing him to an unneeded decision. Jaina looks like she wants to kneel by Anduin and embrace him, but she stands quiet and still and listens as Anduin rambles.

"She cried so hard," Anduin says, lost in memory, oblivious to all of them now. "She cried watching me--watching what I did. The next day it was two girls. Sisters. They held each other. Same choice, I could choose who would watch and who would die. Or I could do what Garrosh said, what his lieutenants bid me. They took the girls away, before..." Anduin trails off. His fingers twitch and then clench into a fist.

"The third day it was a husband and wife. They were old. They looked at me like..." Anduin shakes his head as though he wishes he could forget, and then, oddly, he laughs. "I think they would have preferred I chose one of them to die. I told Garrosh he didn't need to show me any more, that I wouldn't forget, that I was prepared to do anything he wanted. He said to remember what the wages of disobedience would be, if I angered him or defied him or if I tried to escape." Anduin suddenly seems bitterly angry again, sitting up straight, his voice rising in pitch and cracking as he looks back up at Wrathion. "And I did. I've been violated in more ways than--" he breaks off. "And it was worth it to protect my people. And then you--" Anduin seems to be furiously searching for the right word-- "kidnapped me and made it all for nothing!"

"I'm sure your incredibly loud screaming alerted Garrosh to the fact you didn't want to leave him," Wrathion says, a little sarcastic. Anduin glares at him and looks like he's going to snap at Wrathion again, so Wrathion sighs and adds, more comfortingly, "Try not to worry about your citizens. There's a siege coming to Orgrimmar, he won't want to waste hostages." Wrathion isn't at all sure that's true, Garrosh might be personally dousing their makeshift pens in kerosene and setting them on fire this minute for all he knows, but he thinks as a reassurance it sounds good. Jaina looks at him doubtfully and he second-guesses himself, perhaps it sounds a falsehood after all, but Anduin's peering at him like maybe the thought consoles him. Mission accomplished. Even though if Garrosh does let them live, it'll probably be to have lines of human shields or freshly decapitated heads to trebuchet out during the siege. But Anduin currently seems in need of solace, and Wrathion wants to soothe him. Not least because he requires Anduin's cooperation.

"Besides, you heard Malkorok. Sooner or later they were going to kill you," Wrathion says, gently.

"I heard a lot more of what he had to say about me than you did," Anduin answers, a bit hostile still. Wrathion thinks of the stony menace on Malkorok's face as he pulled the kneeling human prince forward by his hair, speaking into his ear. Yes, he's sure Malkorok had plenty of things to tell Anduin Wrynn. Anduin quickly swipes his hands over his cheeks, under his eyes.

When Wrathion offers Anduin his claw again, Anduin regards it for a moment but then takes it, and Wrathion pulls him carefully to his feet as he stands. Wrathion hands him the cane he'd made. Then he pulls out the white dressing gown, shaking the folds loose and holding it open for Anduin to put his arms into the sleeves as one would hold open a coat for a child.

Anduin looks at the garment and laughs at him tartly. "White? Really, you're going to dress me in white?"

"Always, dear prince," Wrathion says, serene, and Anduin snorts, but he shrugs his arms into the sleeves.

Wrathion begins to button it down the front for him, but Anduin shifts a couple of inches away. "I can do it," he says sullenly. 

"Would you like a bath, Anduin?" Jaina asks, getting Anduin's full and immediate attention.

"Yes," Anduin says. "Yes I would."

* * * * *

The streets of Dalaran are full of human refugees from Stormwind. The conditions for them are better than they were in Orgrimmar, but it's still not a pretty sight. Wrathion has read in his watchers' messages that the Shrine of Seven Stars is much the same.

Jaina escorts them to a small shopfront with a set of white marble stairs going up the side of the building. The site isn't far from the tower where they materialized, but even with the cane to assist him, Anduin's gait has slowed by the time they arrive. It occurs to Wrathion that Anduin probably hasn't walked in days. When they reach the base of the stairs he offers Anduin his arm, and Anduin somewhat reluctantly takes it, leaning on him more heavily than Wrathion expected. Jaina works the arcane lock on the door by putting her fingertip on it and twisting.

Wrathion stations two of his agents outside the entrance to stand guard, and sends the other two off to get some sleep, so it's just Jaina and Anduin, and Left and Right and him inside their rooms.

The apartment inside is a set of quarters with a sitting room, two bedrooms and a water closet with a large bathtub, big enough for two. There's a dining table with six chairs around it, and the sitting room has a magical fireplace. Jaina conjures a handkerchief and a palmful of water and swipes at Anduin's lips. Wrathion leaves them briefly to poke around their chambers, intending to conjure hot water for Anduin's bath, but he discovers the clawed bathtub fills and heats magically. How delightful. The little room has a fresh bar of soap and clean, fluffy towels on a shelf. 

He wanders back out to the sitting room. Anduin's unbuttoned the dressing gown to his hips, and the tabard-scrap belted loincloth and his boots have been kicked into a tiny pile in the corner. Jaina uses her magic to unlock the manacles from around Anduin's wrists, then moves behind him to unbuckle the black leather collar from around Anduin's neck.

"May I?" Wrathion says, gesturing at Anduin's nipple piercings, prepared to help.

Anduin jerks back as if Wrathion had tried to touch one, bumping into Jaina in his sudden backward lurch. "Leave them," he says sharply. Silence descends for a few seconds.

Jaina looks like she might cry again. "Why, Anduin?"

Wrathion stares at Anduin's nipples and the silver chain connecting them before Anduin yanks the silk robe closed over his chest, hiding the piercings and chain from view. "Have you decided you like them?" Wrathion asks nonchalantly. "Hm. I wouldn't have thought you the type."

Anduin sounds angry. "No, I don't like them. But I'm not ready to pull them out, either." Anduin turns his head to level his gaze at Jaina. "When I'm sure I won't be going back," he answers. "Then I'll take them out."

Jaina stares at him as if horrified. Anduin's leather collar twists in her hands, forgotten as her hands wring with distress.

"You're not going back," Wrathion tells him. "You are never going back. You're not his chattel anymore. Take heart, I will kill you myself before I let him near you again." He means it.

"That's very comforting, great," Anduin says, sounding sarcastic. "Just one more person not asking me what I want. No worries, I've gotten quite used to that."

Jaina looks at Anduin anguished, but Wrathion isn't fazed now. "Well of course it's not Plan A. Would you like to hear about Plan A? I'll tell you the whole thing." 

"That'll be a first," Anduin says, but he sits down in one of the chairs with his eyes on Wrathion, and he's listening intently.

Wrathion clasps his claws behind his back and begins to pace. He rather likes having Anduin as an audience again. "We join up with the growing rebellion mounting against Orgrimmar. We crush Garrosh and we definitely kill Warlord Zaela the Creepy and Malkorok and Left's boyfriend Nazgrim and any others who stand in our way." Anduin gives Left a brief confused glance, but she maintains her straight-ahead stare. "We take back your father and the High Tinkerer and figure out how to free Kalecgos--" Wrathion allows his eyes to meet Jaina's gaze briefly with a slight nod, might as well make certain he has her support as well. "--and the rest of the high ranking prisoners, and we arm and release the former occupants of Stormwind both inside and outside the city. We get rid of Y'shaarj's heart and we decimate the orcs before formally joining the trolls, blood elves, and tauren to the Alliance." Wrathion stops walking and turns to Anduin to behold his reaction.

Anduin's studying him. "Is that the plan?"

"It is the plan so far. I am open to improvements. We are in this together now, so consider this me asking you what you want. I'm not letting you go back to Garrosh out of some idiotic sense of martyrdom. But if you don't like the plan, we'll make alterations." Wrathion looks at Anduin expecting, if not an unqualified yes, then at least some approval. It's a fine plan. And if Varian is done for back in Orgrimmar, Wrathion will need King Anduin Wrynn on board for the part where they incorporate the trolls and blood elves and so on into the Alliance.

Anduin crosses his silk-clad arms carefully across his chest. The dressing gown has fallen back open, and Wrathion sees Anduin keeps his forearms well underneath the nipple chain as he thinks that over. When he speaks, he sounds delightfully like the old Anduin. "I don't like the 'decimate the orcs' part. Most have done nothing wrong. Their only crime is having to live with someone else's mistake in choosing their leadership. Only those orcs actively fighting for Garrosh die. Orcish civilians are to be left alone, and any fighters who want to surrender must receive quarter. I won't help you unless you agree to that."

Wrathion inclines his head respectfully. "Of course."

"And the plan seems light on actual logistics." Anduin uncrosses his arms and cracks his knuckles, a restless, unprincely gesture and something else Wrathion's never seen him do before. "What about the goblins? And Sylvanas?" Anduin shakes his head, but he doesn't need to finish. The forsaken and their leader do not have a place in the Alliance as it stands.

"I hate to see the Bilgewater goblins wiped out, a single goblin lost is like a thousand military-grade explosions never to happen," Wrathion sighs. "A lot of them have remained loyal to Garrosh. But I'm sure with the right leverage, that is to say, some vague threats and a large bribe, we can get Gallywix on board. And the forsaken... well. I'm still toying with the particulars. We'll figure it out." Wrathion's eyes fall back to the jewelry that still adorns Anduin's bared chest. "We should at least disconnect the chain. It's going to catch on something and those barbells could rip your nipples half off."

"Don't touch me," Anduin spits out, his whole body suddenly trembling, and the violence of his words makes Wrathion hesitate.

Then he gets annoyed. "Fine. Would you like some different clothes, then, after you bathe? Or do you prefer to stay in the outfit Garrosh picked out, too?" Right peers up at the violet-painted ceiling, Left's suddenly deeply preoccupied by the injury to her hand, and Jaina looks at him like he's some kind of monster. "What?"

* * * * *

Wrathion's nettled query is something of a conversation-ender. Anduin avoids his eyes and limps with his cane into the water closet, managing to move fast enough that the back of the white dressing gown sweeps out a little behind him, and he shuts the door. Jaina departs for her own apartments to bathe and change, glaring at Wrathion even as she promises to return shortly. Anduin spends a long time in his bath.

A knock comes from the apartment's entrance and Right opens it. The Blacktalon Wrathion dispatched in Orgrimmar walks past Right with a familiar, mutually respectful exchange of nods, and he hands Wrathion two folded letters. "Your Majesty."

Wrathion nods his own appreciation and rips the missive with Vol'jin's Darkspear diamond seal open first, reading it immediately. He reads the one from Lor'themar Theron next, and then he puts both down to consider their contents.

He dismisses his watcher and reads the letters again. He eventually starts to wonder if Anduin has drowned in the tub. He can't have slit his wrists, Wrathion had checked for any razor blades. Wrathion is all of five feet from the water closet door, but he doesn't want to go knock. Anduin seemed quite put out with him before.

"Check on him, will you?" he says to Right. "Respectfully, of course."

Right takes two steps forward and knocks twice on the door. "Prince Anduin? Are you all right in there?"

Anduin's voice is muffled by the door, but he's audible. "I'm fine."

Right looks down at Wrathion and shrugs. "He's fine."

Fine, then.

While Anduin soaks, Wrathion fashions new clothing for the prince with his mind. He closes his eyes and pictures Anduin as he'd seen him only a few times--not the more casual clothing he'd worn beneath his tabard for everyday, for staying in the Tavern and playing games or walking up to Mason's Folly, but the princely, more official raiment Wrathion saw more rarely. The last time was on the morning Anduin packed his things and left for the Shrine.

Wrathion conjures a white tunic, long at the sides, with gold trim. He focuses again and makes loosely cut, thick blue pants and soft boots of brown leather, folded down at the top with a strip of gold accent. He fashions a purplish-blue silk sash and a leather belt. He pictures the lion of Stormwind in his mind, the stern lines comprising the eyes and the strands of mane pointing upwards, all the patterns little intricacies rendered on a royal crest, and he turns it into a bright blue silk tabard with cloth-of-gold trim. He creates the matching blue mantle with dangling gold tassels with a moment of concentration and a nudge of power. Wrathion has an excellent memory. He thinks for another second and makes thin brown leather gloves. Right had given him Anduin's crown, so he sets that on top of the pile of clothes. He recalls Anduin's underclothes from when he went through Anduin's possessions. Wrathion had passed over them without comment, but noted all Anduin's smallclothes were crisp white cotton with drawstring fastenings. Wrathion makes him a pair of black ones, just to be funny.

Anduin still doesn't come out. Wrathion paces in the sitting room waiting for him. Wrathion realizes he forgot to check and see what was in the iron-bound wooden chest behind Anduin at the foot of the throne, and he scowls. He'd meant to look, but Anduin's erratic reaction to being rescued made him forget.

When Anduin finally emerges from the water closet it's fresh from his bath, walking with the cane, still not looking at him. Wrathion stares at him in mild surprise. Anduin's naked and dripping a puddle on the floor, no towel, but he doesn't seem to care. Wrathion certainly doesn't mind. Though Wrathion doesn't remember Anduin being so... brazen... before. Left and Right are looking anywhere and everywhere but at Anduin, but as the prince walks past him, Wrathion allows himself an eyeful. He takes the full study of Anduin he'd held back from in the throne room, and since Anduin hasn't even bothered with a towel, Wrathion doesn't bother to hide the intensity of his gaze.

From the back, from his waist and the curvature where his back meets his bottom, Anduin could be mistaken for a woman. From the front, his chest has only the faintest suggestions of broadness. Wrathion lets his eyes pass over the nipple piercings Anduin didn't choose. Anduin's stomach is flat, and his skin is pale all over. His bright blond hair is water-darkened, and he has little hair on his body. He has a number of faded scars here and there and everywhere, by their look, Wrathion's guessing from open fractures when the bell crushed him. He is slender, even a little thin now, and no part of him is particularly muscular. His penis is not large, but it is suited to his slight, still-androgynous frame. His face is heart-shaped and his chin is narrow and his eyes are an exquisite blue. He heavily favors his right leg as he leans on his cane.

Anduin is imperfect but... he's perfect. Wrathion feels the weight of his want in his chest.

Anduin seems to be on his way to one of the bedrooms, but he pauses when he sees the pile of clothes and runs a hand through his wet hair.

Animal instinct, perhaps, makes part of Wrathion long to seize Anduin and put his tongue in Anduin's mouth, to push him down to the floor and establish once and for all that Anduin belongs to him and no one else. Wrathion averts his eyes from the human prince. The time is probably as far as it can possibly be from right. And Anduin's probably been ruined for aggressive overtures forever. Thinking about that makes Wrathion sad, so he starts a conversation to distract himself.

"I like this city," Wrathion tells him.

"I'm not surprised," Anduin says after a moment, looking at the clothes laid out so nicely for him. Strangely, he balks. "I don't know if I can wear this," Anduin says flatly, looking at the ensemble.

There's a knock at the door and Anduin calls, "Come in." He's still naked. Wrathion raises an eyebrow at him, but Anduin's studying his clothes.

Jaina walks three steps in, sees Anduin leaning on his cane in the sitting room naked but for some water droplets and his piercings, and she gasps and spins around, turning her back to them. "Oh Light, I'm sorry, I didn't--" she says, breaking off, and she starts to hurry from the room.

"It's fine, Jaina. Everyone's seen it," Anduin says, glancing at her before turning back to the pile of clothing. Uncertainty comes off her back in waves, and Jaina wavers in the doorway for a few seconds, but then she closes the open door and rests her hand up on the frame. Not leaving, but not turning around either.

"Unless you have plans to abdicate your throne, you're still the crown prince of Stormwind, no matter what happened to you in Orgrimmar," Wrathion reminds him, ignoring Jaina. He's not sure Anduin's exhibitionism is coming from a healthy place either, but if Anduin wants to walk around without any clothes, Wrathion's not going to be the one to make it awkward. "You can wear this. And you should." Honestly, this is no time for an identity crisis. Anduin needs to be a visible figurehead for the Alliance, now more than ever. "Do you want... some variation on the theme?"

Anduin sighs, giving in. "No, you're right. This is what I should wear." He dangles the black smallclothes from one finger vaguely in Wrathion's direction and snorts a stifled laugh. But then he slips the shorts on, despite not being fully dry, and picks up the pants. "Where did you get these?"

"I made them like I make my own."

Anduin finally looks at him, and he looks at him oddly. "Thank you, Wrathion," he says after a moment. "And thank you for... rescuing me."

Finally, some appreciation. "You are most welcome, dear prince," he says. Wrathion is, if he's honest with himself, sort of in love with Anduin Wrynn. Ugh. In love with a mortal, it's unspeakably trite. "I wouldn't have potentially fouled up my plans for anyone else," he adds. In truth, the risk to his life sneaking around like that was probably greater than the risk of upsetting his plans, as he'd have needed to get rid of Garrosh regardless due to the Old God business and the way Garrosh has alienated his allies, but Anduin doesn't need to know that.

Anduin's lips twist up into a half-smile at Wrathion as he pulls the white and gold tunic over his head, hiding the nipple piercings. "But now you have a whole new plot in the works, one you like better, unless I'm mistaken. And I'm obviously to be a cog in it. So you're welcome, assuming I help you. I'm dressed, Jaina. More or less."

Jaina slowly rotates, her fresh gown whispering on the floor as she moves, her face pulled by sheer force of will into an expression that could almost pass for tranquil.

Anduin fastens the belt around his hips. "If saving the world doesn't work out for you, you should become a tailor," Anduin teases.

Wrathion feels a rush of pleasure to have Anduin seem so normal, even for a moment, and he smiles. "If saving the world doesn't work out for me, business will be slow," he quips.

Anduin's faint answering smile has faded by the time he pulls the tabard over his head.

Jaina moves forward and sits down in the well-padded chair next to Wrathion, studiously not looking at Anduin. Wrathion openly watches him finish dressing. Anduin doesn't touch the crown except to push it aside off the rest of his clothing. "Put that on, too," Wrathion tells him, nodding at it. "We have somewhere to be. Vol'jin is holding a meeting in Durotar in three hours to plan the impending siege of Orgrimmar."

Jaina and Anduin both look at him and take that in silently. When Anduin finishes pulling on his boots, he picks up the crown, but he does not put it on. He merely holds it delicately, feeling the weight. "I don't know if I've honored this or forever shamed it," Anduin says quietly. Before Wrathion or Jaina can say anything, he adds, "You didn't make this, did you." Anduin turns the crown over in his hands. It's a statement, not a question.

"No. Right grabbed it off the floor while you were wrestling Left. How did you know?" Wrathion draws a blank. His memory and his creations are both nigh on perfect, he has no idea how Anduin could possibly tell.

"There's a scratch from when I accidentally dropped a mace on it in Ironforge."

Ah, an imperfection in the original! Of course. "Let me see," Wrathion says, getting up and holding his hand out. Anduin passes him the crown and he looks at the jagged scrape, more dent really than scratch. With a quiet word and a fizzle of power, Wrathion brushes the pad of one finger over the little indentation, smoothing it. He inhales and breathes fire lightly on the crown, turning it to and fro, cleaning it with the heat and pressurized force of his breath. He murmurs another charm and waves his hand over it a second time to cool the metal.

"May I?" Wrathion knows it's a manservant's responsibility to dress a prince, but Anduin is his friend and there are no manservants handy. Anduin nods and Wrathion sets the circlet over his brow, judging the crown's placement and adjusting it minutely a few times.

Jaina watches them.

"You look most regal," Wrathion says. "You must trust me, I know regal."

His jest has the desired effect--Anduin smiles again ever so slightly.

Anduin looks up at Jaina. "So... you saw what happened to me. What happened to you?" he asks.

"Nothing much, in comparison," Jaina says, but her expression darkens. "Bonds set with a nullification spell, so I couldn't do any magic, and a cell. But Kalec was in some kind of unnatural sleep and I couldn't wake him."

Anduin's face clouds at that news. "I'm sorry," he says, and for a moment they're all quiet. 

Then Jaina asks, "Did you see your father at all?"

Anduin drops his eyes and shakes his head no. Wrathion is certain he's lying.

Jaina looks relieved. "I'm just as glad if -- if you didn't see him." She stumbles over the words as though she's thought better of the whole line of inquiry halfway through and too late.

Anduin nods without looking up. Wrathion watches him. He knows his golden prince to be scrupulously honest. If Anduin's lying about seeing his father, it's probably because the truth is too twisted and grotesque to tell.

Jaina shifts, rubbing her neck as though tired. "I guess no one's getting any more sleep. But we don't need to go quite yet." Her eyes drop briefly below Anduin's neck, and Wrathion knows she's looking at how thin Anduin's become before she turns away. Her voice is bright, though Wrathion is good at seeing through even gifted diplomats, and her cheer seems to him forced. "I'm hungry. Is anyone else?"

* * * * *

Anduin says he wants breakfast, so Jaina orders an enormous breakfast brought to the room for the five of them, with more food for the two agents still standing guard outside. Eggs, steaks, bacon, pancakes, and platters of fruit, cheeses, breads and flaky baked goods. 

Wrathion can take nourishment from any sort of food mortals eat, meat or plant or grain, but he eats a lot of meat. He can consume flesh raw and bloody or burned and blackened, but his preference is to char the exterior of a cut of meat, leaving the inside raw, and he prefers to do so himself so it's done the way he likes it. Three of the steaks are raw and fresh from butchering, set apart from the others in a dripping plate of blood. He's surprised and momentarily impressed that Jaina would think to do that for him, until he remembers Jaina lives with a dragon.

Jaina evidently hasn't forgotten about her dragon, for she stares moodily at the table while she eats a hard-boiled egg and some toast with jam, and then picks at half a grapefruit morosely. Anduin, sitting between Wrathion and Left, sets his attention to his plate and devours his food like he's starving, which, Wrathion thinks, he probably is. Anduin drinks orange juice and coffee with cream and eats three eggs, half a rare steak, a large wedge of Dalaran sharp, several pancakes with syrup, a frosted pastry, an apple, and a small pile of bacon. Despite enjoying the proximity to Anduin, Wrathion wishes they were sitting across from one another so Wrathion could more fully and discreetly appreciate watching him eat. Anduin's always had a good appetite, but he's never seen Anduin put away so much at once.

When Anduin's finally winding down, Wrathion has to ask. "Was Garrosh starving you, my dear prince?"

Anduin puts down his fork and looks over at him a little uncomfortably, as though reluctant to speak of his captivity. Their faces are very close sitting next to each other at the table, no more than a foot apart. "No. Not at all. He fed me. I mean, not even remotely like this, but there was food. I just... didn't have much appetite." He breaks eye contact. "I know I've lost weight."

It seems wise not to remark upon Anduin's body at all. Wrathion lets it drop.

Before they leave the table, Anduin turns to Left and quietly asks if she'll let him heal her hand. She glances past him to Wrathion as if seeking permission to decline, but Wrathion widens his eyes commandingly and nods. Left looks disgruntled, but she holds out her bandaged hand and Anduin takes it in his own, murmurs and heals the bite. Wrathion watches as Left's tense, annoyed expression eases.

Left nods her head at Anduin when he's finished, but she does not thank him. It is Anduin who says, "Thank you, Left."

* * * * *

Jaina arranges for them to borrow a bunch of horses, and she cautiously portals their group a ways away from the outskirts of Sen'jin Village. Anduin, Left, Right, Jaina, six of his Blacktalons and five of the humans he accepted from Garrosh ride through the dusty land of southern Durotar in the growing light of dawn. Wrathion prefers not to ride, and the chance to stretch his wings is welcome, so he flies next to Anduin.

They've gone about a mile and are approaching the meeting site when the Blacktalon bringing up the rear spots a small herd of tauren riding hard behind them. Wrathion chooses not to alter their pace, and Baine and half a dozen of his people catch up to them and pull alongside.

"Anduin Wrynn," Baine says respectfully.

"Baine Bloodhoof." Anduin bows from his horse the distance to indicate he regards Baine as an equal, and Baine touches his heart and then his forehead in response.

"It is good to see you here," Baine says.

"And you. You're far from home," Anduin says.

"You are farther, son of Stormwind," Baine answers slowly, reminding all three of them that Stormwind is burned, and putting a dark mood on the morning. Baine says even more gravely. "This situation could not be of greater import. I could be nowhere else. And I see the same is true for you." 

Anduin nods.

With his tail flickering a bit behind him, Baine turns to Wrathion. "Black Prince."

Wrathion hovers, still flapping his wings, and inclines his scaly head. "Chieftain."

Baine falls back to exchange quiet greetings with Jaina. He looks back once at Wrathion like he wants to say more, but they've reached their destination. A dozen trolls stand before them, ready to receive each of their steeds and stable them for safekeeping. They dismount and hand over all the sets of reins, and Wrathion changes back into his human guise. Then they make their way on foot a short distance to the meeting site. Near a large outcropping of rock beyond are a lot of people of different races standing around and milling about, watching each other and conducting murmured conversations amongst themselves. Wrathion's glad he thought to bring some of the humans along to represent Anduin's race, rather than having Anduin merely on his arm, as it were. More than ever, with the crowning city of his kingdom ravaged, Anduin needs to present the trappings and project the appearance of power.

Wrathion sees three gnomes and a bunch of dwarves he doesn't recognize. Anduin halts to give and receive respectful greetings with each party. A handful of draenei are there, but not their leader Velen. Anduin again pauses to formally greet them, and he also says a few quiet words into the ear of one of the draenei women. Wrathion pauses to wait for him each time, and of course the rest of their party follows his lead. Anduin is skilled at this sort of function, Wrathion sees. He's not previously had the chance to see Anduin's highly schooled yet seemingly effortless courtly manners so on display. Anduin's clearly been well and patiently trained.

Wrathion exchanges nods of respect with Tyrande, who's very obviously the leader of the cadre of male and female night elves who stand fanned out around her, and he nods also to Sylvanas, silently standing off to Lor'themar's right with a collection of dark rangers around her armed to the teeth. Anduin bows to Tyrande and holds a quiet conversation with her. Tyrande murmurs a blessing to him.

Anduin inclines his head slightly to Sylvanas in acknowledgement, but not exactly greeting. Wrathion could be wrong, but he thinks he sees Sylvanas and a few of her rangers smirking at Anduin as they walk on. If Anduin notices, he gives no sign.

Will Anduin have to endure such for the rest of his life? Snickers from his enemies because he spent a week sitting on the floor to save a few of his people? Wrathion knows well the power that issues from respect, and this is his Anduin, guided his entire life to pay deference to appearances. Wrathion taps a black claw against his lips and thinks seriously about eating Sylvanas. He's not sure forsaken flesh would be savory, but subpar taste has never stopped him before. 

He has to figure out what to do about the forsaken. Eating Sylvanas would not really solve anything. Most of the living races have warred so much, they've decimated their populations, but the armies of the undead swell. Their warriors will be needed to face the Legion. He has to find some leverage to use with Sylvanas, and he has to think of a way to convince Anduin the forsaken should be allowed to join the Alliance. He has only a few seconds to consider the question, however, before they come to Lor'themar.

The regent lord only has eyes for Anduin as they approach. Guilt and remorse are written into the few fine lines of Lor'themar's face.

"I'm sorry, Prince Anduin," Lor'themar says quietly, as if they're alone, and without even ceremoniously greeting him first.

Anduin, who'd been shying away from Lor'themar's eyes, visibly pulls together his princely dignity and lifts his chin. "It's all right," he says, and after a moment adds, "I apologize also. Both our choices were... constrained."

Lor'themar studies him another long moment, then bows, inclining his upper half a degree farther than standards would dictate for a human prince of Stormwind and a presumptive enemy. The simple message of gratitude from one man to another is clear, but Anduin, who is well aware of the exquisitely perfect manners of the sin'dorei, doesn't seem to know how to respond to what could conceivably be viewed as a breach of etiquette. His lips part slightly, but he doesn't say anything more, gazing up at Lor'themar.

Lor'themar, who seems to be heading up the assemblage until Vol'jin's arrival, turns to Wrathion, tacitly acknowledging him as the head of their collected coterie by addressing him first--to be fair, he's the one who's been in communication with Lor'themar and Vol'jin--and formally addressing each of them as well as bowing to each in the proper degree. "Your Majesty Prince Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight. Your Highness Crown Prince Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind, and Lady Jaina Proudmoore of the Kirin Tor." His eyes move on to Baine. "High Chieftain Baine Bloodhoof of Mulgore. Thank you all for coming. Vol'jin will be here soon. Then we'll start."

Wrathion appreciates having his title spoken more or less the way he likes it. So few people say it properly.

Vol'jin, their host, is the only leader to ride up directly to the meeting and without any entourage, perhaps simply because there are Darkspear trolls milling all around them. He appears on a raptor between two trees, holding up his hands mutely for a moment when Sylvanas' rangers turn a dozen taut bows in his direction. Wrathion wonders why everyone's weapons haven't been temporarily confiscated. Isn't that customary at these sorts of meetings? "Peace. It jus' be me."

Vol'jin dismounts, hands off his raptor and takes command of the meeting immediately by striding to the head of the messy half-formed circle, and he doesn't waste time on trivialities like greetings. He gazes around at everyone assembled, looking around at their faces and nodding briefly to each he recognizes. Wrathion notices Vol'jin has a wide healed-over scar across his throat. Of course, Garrosh's knife in the dark. "Ya all know who I am. Thrall regret 'e can't be 'ere t'night. But 'e makin' dis meeting possible, so I be 'ere in 'is stead. Ya all know why we 'ere. We gotta lay siege ta Orgrimmar. We gotta get ridda Garrosh and da ting 'e be keepin' under Orgrimmar once and for all."

* * * * * 

They talk for an hour, organizing, creating and receiving assignments and timelines. After the plans have been made, argued over, and more or less settled, when all have been dismissed but are still talking quietly and dispersing slowly, Baine approaches Wrathion. "I understand we have you to thank for Prince Anduin's rescue from Orgrimmar," he says in his deep, resonant voice.

Anduin stiffens a bit next to him, and Wrathion nods curtly. "Would that I had prevented his capture in the first place." His mouth feels tight.

"Would that I had been able to do either one. None of us foresaw these dark turns of events ahead," Baine rumbles calmly, his voice kind. Was that meant as comfort? Wrathion's annoyed that Baine would even think he needs consoling words from a laconic tauren of all people, but he takes a huffy breath and lets it go. "You have my thanks," Baine adds slowly. He turns to Anduin and after a moment puts an enormous three-fingered hand on the boy's shoulder. "You are courageous, Anduin. Strong and courageous, even more than your father. I admire you more than I ever have."

Anduin can't seem to speak. His lips quiver once, and he bows his head and shoulders again to Baine, though not as deeply as before. Anduin seems unsteady. Wrathion wonders if the caffeine from his coffee is wearing off. He'd like to take Anduin's arm, but he doesn't want to make Anduin look weak.

"Blessings of the Earth Mother be upon you both," Baine says, his tail swishing gently from side to side, and nods before moving on.

"See you at the siege," Wrathion says. He sighs smoke out of his mouth as he and Anduin begin to walk again, slowly with Anduin's limp, towards the area where all their steeds are tethered. "Are you all right?" Wrathion inquires. Anduin nods.

"Baine saw you?" Wrathion asks, though he thinks he already knows the answer. "In Orgrimmar?"

Anduin nods, looking after the tauren. "He yelled at Garrosh," Anduin says absently. "About me. They argued, sort of. Finally Baine stormed out." Anduin puts a tired hand to his forehead. "Have you ever heard a male tauren yell?"

Wrathion thinks a minute. "I can't say that I have."

"Well, someday you will and you'll remember I told you it was a notable experience," Anduin says. He adds more seriously, "With the things he said, I was surprised Garrosh didn't have him killed out of hand."

Wrathion takes a good look at the human prince. Anduin looks utterly spent, his face a shade paler than usual, the dark circles under his eyes deeper than ever. "Let's go back to Dalaran and get some sleep," Wrathion suggests. "Jaina can portal us straight back, no point riding anywhere." The excitement of the meeting has kept Wrathion wide awake and alert as a knife's edge, but he's tired too if he stops to consider the question. Anduin nods gratefully, and Wrathion turns to search for Proudmoore's face in the crowds of trolls, and contigents of dwarves, draenei, gnomes, and three different kinds of elves going every which way.

* * * * *

A few nights before the siege begins, when the armies are assembling south of Orgrimmar, Anduin ducks into Wrathion's tent. Anduin has his own pavilion of course, in the Alliance colors, but it's a formality. He spends all his time in Wrathion's, and returns to his own only to sleep and bathe.

Anduin's sunny hair is wet, darkening it to brown. Wrathion knows Anduin bathes every night now, because while it's a few of the devoted collection of rescued humans who draw the water for Anduin's bath, it's Wrathion himself who heats it with the stirring touch of his hand. A daily washing had not been Anduin's habit at the Tavern.

Upon finding Wrathion alone but for Left and Right, Anduin leans his cane against a chair and reaches up and pulls his tunic over his head. The prince looks a bit precarious while balancing with his arms over his head and without his cane, but he manages to stay upright. Wrathion freezes as the garment comes off, looking at Anduin's slim, pierced chest with the chain between his nipples. Wrathion's heart beats faster, and he feels the animalistic desire rise up in him again.

"I'm ready to take these out," Anduin says, and his voice cracks.

Wrathion looks at him questioningly, ignoring the familiar urge to push Anduin to the ground and kiss him, to touch every part of him and turn him over and claim him. "Did you want my assistance?"

"I thought-- well, you seemed very eager to help me with them before," Anduin mutters, looking away.

Wrathion looks at him and says nothing.

"Fine, yes. I don't want to touch them," Anduin says, as if he's disgusted, and as if it costs him something to admit it.

Oh. "My dear prince. Of course. Please sit."

Anduin sits in one of several chairs in Wrathion's tent, not meeting his eyes anymore.

Wrathion focuses for a moment and shifts his claws into human fingers with black fingernails only a shade past his fingertips. He sits down across from Anduin, pulling his own chair close, and leans down to examine the piercings. His face is mere inches from Anduin's body as he looks at the piercings. Crude, mediocre craftsmanship, in Wrathion's opinion. The silver balls are not perfectly round nor perfectly polished. With steady movements, he reaches to Anduin's chest to carefully remove the first barbell. He tries not to brush any part of his fingers against Anduin's nipple as he twists and pulls the ball off the rod. When he pulls the two pieces apart, the end of the thin chain falls to the other side of Anduin's chest.

Anduin lets out the breath he'd been holding. He puts his thumb and index finger over his nipple, pinching and rubbing it lightly, as if for pleasure, but his two fingertips glow with golden light. Wrathion watches him for a moment, then sets the barbell on the table next to them and moves to the other side. Wrathion takes the second piercing out and catches the chain as it falls, coiling it into a circle.

"The earrings, too. Please." Anduin rolls his other nipple between thumb and index finger, same as the first, radiant with the soft power of the Light. 

Wrathion removes the simpler friction-fit earrings much more quickly and sets them too on the table. Wrathion wants to reach back up and caress Anduin's nipples between his own thumbs and forefingers, wants to replace the neutral expression on Anduin's face with the shivering, disheveled look of erotic pleasure that he'd worn riding Lor'themar, or the frown of sexual concentration he'd had bringing himself to completion. Wrathion's sure he can.

Wrathion sits back quietly and crosses his arms over his chest, shifting his bare human hands back into his gloved claws and tucking them behind his elbows.

Anduin presses both of his earlobes against his skull, rubbing them. His fingertips alight again, and when he pulls away, Wrathion sees the tiny holes have disappeared, leaving smooth, unblemished skin behind. Anduin rubs at his nipples one last time with both palms, an ordinary motion with no Light concentrated behind it, and sits for a second before pulling his tunic back on.

Anduin still doesn't look at him. "Can I sleep next to you tonight?" His blue eyes flash up to Wrathion's face for a second. "Just to sleep," he adds, a little guarded.

Wrathion stares at him, pressing his arms down harder over his claws. "Certainly. Of course. Are you having nightmares, Prince Anduin?" He moves his eyes to Right in the corner of the tent. "Left, Right, would you excuse us please? Just wait outside a minute." He pushes his chair back and gets up to pour some wine from the sideboard while they go out. He pours two cups and hands one to Anduin, who accepts it with a confused, slightly tense look. 

"I... am."

"Not surprising, and perfectly understandable."

"Any particular reason we're drinking and you sent your bodyguards away?"

Wrathion swirls the wine in his glass and gazes down at Anduin. "I'm curious. What happened when you saw your father?"

Anduin looks stricken. "I-- I said I didn't see my father."

"Yes, you did indicate that. And you are an atrocious liar. I would have hoped spending as much time with me as you have, you'd have picked up a bit more proficiency. I suppose you simply don't get enough practice."

Anduin laughs shortly with no humor in it, and he sets his cup down without a taste, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't want to talk about it." He issues the statement like a challenge.

Wrathion shrugs. "All right. Just keep in mind--you can lie to dear Aunt Jaina, but don't think for a second you can lie to me."

"Why would you even ask, then, since you obviously know I don't wish to discuss it?" Anduin looks incredulous, and hurt, too, but the words are sharp.

"As I said, mere curiosity. Lying is not only not your forte, it's not your style. I wondered why you would deceive the people who care most for you, and I thought as I'm not Auntie Jaina, you might tell me. I do hope you know you can tell me anything, should you wish to, in the gravest confidence."

Anduin stares up at him a minute, then picks up his cane and stands and walks over to him. He invades Wrathion's space, getting much closer than normal.

"Isn't that something friends do?" Wrathion asks innocently. 

Their faces are inches away. There's no fury or violence in Anduin's face. He doesn't even look angry, only intense and a little aggressive, as if daring Wrathion to contradict him or defy him or touch him. Anduin's eyes are wide open, hard and unblinking. "Do you want all the sordid details, then, Wrathion, to satisfy your curiosity? How much Malkorok liked to hurt me? The things he did to me? How much I cried, how much I screamed? How Garrosh could be kind and it was almost worse than when--" Anduin breaks off, stares him down, sucks in a breath through his mouth, and visibly collects himself. "I don't want you to ask me about any of it again. Not ever. And I didn't. See. My father. Grow up and accept that there are some questions you don't get to have answered."

He's never seen Anduin do anything like this before. Not to him, not to anyone. Anduin is not the sort of person to get up in someone's face to make a statement. Nor is he the sort to deny a truth, even if the reality is an ugly one. 

"It's not in my nature not to ask questions," Wrathion says, casually swirling the wine in his glass again. "You know that."

Anduin opens his mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes out.

"Still want to sleep with me?" Wrathion ever so slightly draws out the 'sl' in 'sleep,' serpent-like. "If you like, I'll teach you how to lie better before we go to bed." His words are loaded, and he knows it.

Anduin stares at him for another few moments, then turns and walks away, leaning heavily on his cane. He ducks out of the pavilion, and Wrathion lets him go. Wrathion's always enjoyed pressing Anduin's buttons. But now he pushes so lightly and drives Anduin to these new and dizzyingly fascinating places. His Anduin has returned to him changed, and he's more riveting than ever. Not a good trade, no, but Anduin's behavior is undeniably interesting.

Now he'll get to see if Anduin forgives him as readily as he used to.

Wrathion steathily sticks his head out of his tent to ascertain Anduin's only going into his own tent and not wandering off to who knows where. He mentally contacts one of his watchers, the usual one who's been keeping an eye on Anduin when he's out of Wrathion's presence. Then he sits back down and drinks both glasses of wine and thinks. 

* * * * *

Anduin doesn't come back that night, not for sleep or anything else, but the next morning he comes into Wrathion's pavilion to eat breakfast together, same as normal. After they eat, though, Anduin stands up immediately and says he'll be back shortly. "I've been asked to come alone," Anduin tells him, and he smiles a little at the look on Wrathion's face. "Don't worry, I won't leave the camp. And I'll be back before it's time to head out."

Wrathion raises an eyebrow at him. Part of him wants to crack wise about Anduin meeting the sin'dorei regent lord for a tryst, but he holds his tongue. "All right," he says. "I shall wait for you here."

Wrathion is not Anduin's jailer, and he is not Anduin's father. A redundant distinction there really, and though winding Anduin up is one of life's little pleasures, he's glad the prince isn't angry at him anymore. But he didn't go to all this effort to get Anduin back just to lose him again, so a few seconds after Anduin departs the tent, Wrathion motions to Left and Right to stay put, changes into his dragon form and wriggles out under the back of the pavilion. The tent is stretched tautly, and his belly gets dirty squirming through the tight space between the oiled silk and the earth. But he gets out, and he flies around the side of the tent, keeping careful to stay out of sight, to see the direction Anduin's walking. He wants very much to follow Anduin himself, but common sense gets the better of him, and he flies quickly to two of his watchers and changes back to his human form, shedding the dirt and mud to the ground as he transforms. If they're startled to have his Majesty suddenly fly up and morph to his human form in front of them, they don't show it.

"Shadow Prince Anduin. I want to know where he's going and with whom he's meeting." He pauses, deciding on his precise instructions. "Don't let him do anything stupid. Use your judgment as to what constitutes stupid, if you have to make a split-second decision. I'll watch and listen and give you further instructions as necessary." He taps his temple with a claw and the two rogues nod as he connects with them mentally, seeing himself as his vision splits. "He headed south through the camp. You can catch up to him, he doesn't move very fast. Go now."

He sits and closes his own eyes and watches through their eyes. They hasten after Anduin and catch up to him readily, trailing him at a distance. Anduin walks far, for him, and finds and enters a small, nondescript tent pitched on the outskirts of the camp. The outside of the tent is guarded by two humans dressed in dark leathers that Wrathion hasn't seen in the camp before, that he hasn't seen anywhere else for that matter. His agents go stealthily around to the back of the tent, keeping themselves hidden and shadowed, and listen. There's nothing to hear, though; whatever conversations are being conducted inside are either terribly quiet, or sorcery or technology is being used to suppress sound. It's frustrating, but as long as Anduin's contained in one place, he should be all right. Unless there's a portal in the blasted thing.

Fifteen minutes pass. Wrathion watches while his agents pack up his tent, and the humans pack up Anduin's, while around him the sprawling encampment is quickly and efficiently dismantled as everyone prepares for the day's ride. With the multiple sights of the agents following Anduin, he sees Anduin emerge alone from the little tent and begin the walk back. Wrathion waits for Anduin by the remains of one of the previous evening's campfires near where their pavilions had been, with Left and Right sitting on either side of him. Anduin comes limping back a short time later. Wrathion watches Anduin approach from the front and the back at the same time, seeing Anduin from the angles of both himself and his two agents.

Wrathion stands up and ends his triple vision, brushing himself off. "Anything interesting going on?" He looks at Anduin expectantly, with sharp eyes.

Anduin glances around before answering, and Wrathion wonders for a second whether he's going to lie again, or simply refuse to tell him. But Anduin looks him in the face to answer, and he tells the truth. "It's likely Garrosh will kill my father once the siege begins, if the battle looks to be going our way," Anduin says softly. Wrathion thinks he senses an _if he hasn't already,_ but that possibility goes unspoken. "Mathias Shaw and Amber Kearnen and a handful of the SI:7 escaped Stormwind. They're going to try to mount a last-minute rescue mission to get him out. They wanted my permission and any information I had to give them."

Ah. SI:7. No wonder his agents couldn't hear anything happening inside their tent. "And did you have any valuable information to share?" he asks innocently.

Anduin gives him a warning look. "I did at that." One of the humans brings Anduin his horse, saddled and bridled. Anduin murmurs his thanks to the man and mounts up from the left without help.

"I hope they are successful, then." Wrathion doesn't say anything more, not particularly wanting to raise Anduin's ire again, though in truth he has thought it over and decided it would be better if Varian dies. Anduin is so much more agreeable than his father, and Wrathion can push him, at least to a point. But it's out of his hands, and he'll work with such materials as he's given. 

Wrathion transfigures into his true body, and together they go alongside the column of riders and warriors forming up and heading north towards Orgrimmar in a long line, five deep. Their armies are impressively well organized, Wrathion has to give Vol'jin that. He'd prefer if Anduin was in charge, of course, but Anduin is almost the youngest and possibly the least experienced in this group of warleaders. Truly it doesn't matter who ends up in control, so long as it's a single, sane, strong someone. Wrathion is even flexible on the last requirement. Strong, or manipulatable. Either one will do.

"Jaina's going with them," Anduin tells him. "They're teleporting to the south mountains, I think, and going in from there."

"She'll look sublime in primitive lingerie and your manacles," Wrathion says, shaking his head out and letting the dusty wind catch his wings. Anduin side-eyes him. Wrathion's right, though, that it's an eye-rollingly foolhardy mission. Bad enough to attempt a rescue mission for a valuable hostage from the inside. From the outside, Orgrimmar is quite the impenetrable fortress. Lunatic enough that their combined armies are going to lay siege to and attempt to storm it. To attempt to sneak in and free an even more valuable hostage... no. Simply a terrible idea.

They ride and fly silently next to each other for a time, with Left and Right a little ways back.

The battalion goes on into the horizon, as far as even Wrathion's eyes can see. Wrathion swoops high enough to look back and glimpse where the armies still at the camp continue to assemble themselves into rank, like liquid slowly pouring from an enormous pool into a thin straight stream. From his distance, the riders are the size of insects. Then, lazily, he flies back down to Anduin.

The sun is almost overhead in the sky when Anduin lets out a long, heavy sigh and finally speaks again. "I wish I was going with them."

"I know you must." _And I'm glad you're not._ For the first time he appreciates the severity of Anduin's injury. For the moment, furtive, hare-brained rescue missions are off-limits for him. Still, he feels for the prince. "It's frustrating when you can't be there." He's thinking of when he first heard Anduin was in Stormwind during the sacking, and the words come out glumly. Anduin looks at him and Wrathion realizes how brooding he sounds, and with an effort he pulls himself out of that dolorous memory. He looks back at Anduin and asks something he's been wondering. "When did the SI:7 contact you?"

"One of them approached me first thing this morning when I was out, uh, relieving myself. I take it whichever agent you had watching me never saw them. The SI:7 are pretty good at their jobs." Anduin looks at him with one corner of his mouth up. "I don't think Mathias trusts you, for some reason."

Wrathion scowls because Anduin knows he's been keeping tabs on him, and he harrumphs because if the SI:7 are going to trust anyone it should be him. He rescued Anduin, honestly. But he doesn't make an issue of either.

Anduin goes on, and it's like he's read Wrathion's mind. "To be fair, I don't think they trust anyone. I mean they basically chose to infiltrate the camp here rather than come to me openly, because they don't want it to somehow get back to Garrosh. They think he has spies here," Anduin says soberly. "But I did tell Mathias next time he can send for me or come to me in your presence, and you can be trusted to pass messages to me."

Wrathion is pleased. "Oh, so I am your courier now?" He looks over at Anduin slyly. "And here I thought I was just your savior."

Anduin keeps his face expressionless, but he speaks lightly. "Courier, secretary, messenger boy. Don't pretend you don't like knowing my business."

Wrathion sighs as one greatly put-upon. "I certainly reserve the right to read any and all missives I pass along."

Anduin finally favors him with a slight smile.

"Can I ride with you? I'm tired," Wrathion says as he flies in a little circle. With Wrathion in his human form, they rarely touch, except when Wrathion is flirting. To nestle together with them both in human bodies would be overtly sexual in a way that neither of them could avoid or pretend otherwise. But in his natural body, Wrathion knows Anduin perceives the dynamic a little differently, and he's taken shameless advantage of that fact. Wrathion often used to nap on and against Anduin or curl around his shoulders. When they met, he'd been able to perch up there, but he's getting too bulky and too heavy for that now. Anduin's shoulders are not only narrow but also delicate.

They haven't lain closely together since the last night they spent together at the Tavern, months ago now.

Anduin shifts back an inch or two in the saddle. "Okay."

Wrathion flies into Anduin's lap and makes himself as comfortable as he can in the space between Anduin and the neck of the slowly walking horse, wrapping his tail around himself and resting his snout on Anduin's thigh. After a moment, Anduin lays a placid hand on his side, just the way he used to, as if taking pleasure in the feel of his heat or the slink of his scales or both. Living on the Veiled Stair, Anduin definitely appreciated his heat on cold mornings after the incident with the bell; he always seemed to welcome Wrathion's natural warmth against his sides or his thighs or his shoulders. In the blistering midday Durotar sun, Anduin enjoying his high body temperature seems unlikely. Anduin is already sweating as it is, with beaded droplets on his forehead. If anything, Anduin's probably less comfortable with Wrathion sitting on him. But Anduin hadn't denied his request, and his touch is tender and respectful. Wrathion lifts his head, squinting up at Anduin.

Anduin's regarding him with a bit of amusement. "What?"

Wrathion shakes out his head a little and pauses. Anduin won't appreciate being told he's sweaty. "I'm glad you're here," he says finally.

Anduin moves his hand up and caresses Wrathion's head with two gentle fingers, saying nothing.

That night, Anduin does come into his tent to sleep.

* * * * *

Wrathion sleeps lightly these days, and when someone flicks thrice at the heavy oiled silk entrance of the pavilion, he wakes at once. Anduin slumbers on, his breathing slow and peaceful. He doesn't want to disturb Anduin, so Wrathion rises soundlessly, takes a second to pick up his turban and pull it on, and ducks out alone. A brazier heats the inside of the pavilion, but frigid air comes in as soon as he pushes opens the flap. He's continually surprised by how cold Durotar gets at night when the sun is down.

It's Right. "Your Majesty. Thought you would want to know there's been some fighting, a skirmish a ways to the northeast. Just some scouting parties. A larger party to distract from two smaller ones. But none'll be getting back with any reports. We ate them alive."

"How many?" 

The night is more or less quiet around them, with most of the camp sleeping. "Fifteen in the big group, three each in the smallers," Right answers.

"I hope that was the royal 'we,' Right." He's only teasing, Wrathion doesn't need to tell her to stay away from the front lines. Though they're riding with all those planning to storm Orgrimmar, because Anduin needs to be there in the event of victory, Wrathion has no intention of getting remotely near the fighting. He has two of his champions, a pair of mages, standing by to open a portal for him and his agents and Anduin should the battle start to go south. The second one is a backup.

Right gives him a tiny smile and he dismisses her with a smile of his own. Then he goes silently back into the tent.

With no moonlight, the pavilion is even darker than the night outside, but Wrathion can see in the near-total darkness. Anduin has cast his blanket aside. Wearing only the soft drawstring pants he wore to sleep, he lies on his back on their bedrolls with his pants open and his cock out, slowly rubbing his hand over himself. Wrathion freezes, unsure whether to stay or go. He isn't certain Anduin knows he's back in the tent.

"Garrosh brought me to my father and made him watch," Anduin whispers it into the dark and the quiet like it's a confession, breathing out the words so softly even Wrathion barely catches them. More audibly and a trifle resentfully, he adds, "Are you happy now?"

Wrathion's shoulders uncoil. He sits down at the table where they have a game of Jihui half-played, looking at the human prince, at the slow manipulation of his genitals. "Not even remotely."

Anduin is quiet for a moment, still stroking himself. "You want me." 

"Yes."

"Even... even now. Knowing where I've been and having seen me..." He trails off, like it's an incomplete thought.

"Of course." Not a question Wrathion needs time to consider.

"I... thought so," Anduin says haltingly. "I saw the way you looked at me. And at Garrosh, and Zaela, like you wanted to set everything in a five mile radius on fire." There's a slight laugh in his voice, but no desire. His hand keeps moving his foreskin slowly back and forth. His penis is flaccid and the movement has no passion in it; Anduin's face is melancholy and contains no sexual want. Wrathion watches him, wondering where this is going. "You could have said something earlier." In another tone it could have been a reproach, but Anduin only sounds sad.

Wrathion has no answer for that.

Anduin lets go of his cock and tucks himself away with a sigh before rolling over, his back to Wrathion, his voice coming out a bit muffled as he talks half-against the pillow. "I have feelings for you, too."

"Naturally." Even with the boy's back to him, Wrathion can feel the answering roll of Anduin's eyes. "But?"

"But I don't think I'm there yet. And ... I don't know when I will be. Right now, I feel... like I don't want to be intimate with anyone ever again."

Intimate. Had Anduin been intimate with anyone? From the looks of it... but Wrathion's not going to quibble over a strange word choice. He additionally refrains from pointing out that Anduin's feelings are profoundly, dramatically in flux at the moment, as evidenced by the fact that the previous night Anduin hadn't wanted to divulge the business with his father, and tonight revealed it without any prodding at all.

"There is no rush." Wrathion says it as mildly as he's able.

Anduin snorts, and he casts a wryly knowing look over his shoulder in Wrathion's direction. "Says the least patient person I've ever met."

"You wrong me, dear prince," Wrathion says, even as he's thinking about pushing into Anduin's battered body, Anduin's frail little human form that's been buffeted like a pier in a storm. Wrathion sighs lightly, and in his mind runs through options that would be considerate. "Would you like me to go and you can sleep here alone?"

Anduin looks over his shoulder again. "No. Don't go."

"Shall I sit here and watch over you?"

"No, come back to bed, please."

Wrathion hesitates for a moment. "May I hold you, then, my sweet?" The new endearment comes unbidden from his lips.

Anduin nods as though he doesn't trust himself to speak, but trusts Wrathion to see it in the darkness.


End file.
